Awakenings
by tinabot
Summary: NarutoxHinata. FINISHED but BEING REVISED. This fanfic is a quantum universe, one possible direction the story could go, that branches off after the the big Naru Sasu fight. There's lots of NaruHina fluff and martial arts action. SEQUEL All the Difference will be revised too.
1. Chapter 1

_I started this as a NaruHina one-shot, but thanks to people asking "What's next?", it ended up being 10 chapters with a super long finished sequel and a third one coming up after I rewrite all of these. Thank you to all of my readers, especially those of you who posted reviews and inspired me to write more!_

_Universe: I think of this as a Quantum Naruto Universe, diverging off from where the anime was back in 2005, right after Naruto and Sasuke's first big fight on the lake. So the anime and manga went their own ways, and this story goes in a different direction. _

_Note: In the style of fanfiction, I've sprinkled Japanese in. Here's a little reference list of Japanese Terms: konbanwa (good evening) daijobu (Are you all right? or It'll be all right) oyasuminasai (good night) demo (but) ano (um) edo (um) kirei (beautiful)._

_Disclaimer: Don't own Naruto, but I love all the ninja goodness! This is just for fun and practice as a writer!_

_Motto: I'm always striving to improve, no matter how many times I fail. I won't take back my words. That's my ninja style! ^_~_

* * *

_Awakenings Ch. 1_

He looked down at the floating noodles in his bowl. Just a few left. The chopsticks in his right hand faltered as images flashed through his mind. In kindergarten, he saw her standing apart from the crowd of kids throwing dirt and rocks at him. In class, her shuriken aim wasn't very good so she stayed and practiced after everyone else had left. The medicine she had handed to him after his fight with Kiba and Akamaru. Then the fight with Neji, her eyes filled with determination to fight against all odds, putting her life on the line to live up to her potential, to become a better person. The night they bumped into each other at the summer festival.

* * *

The summer festival was roaring along as enjoyed himself the only way he knew how—alone. It didn't matter. He didn't want to let his loneliness drown him tonight. There was too much fun to be had, and there was no way he was going to be left out of it.

He had just made this private little self-resolution when he saw her, standing by herself, looking rather frightened of the crowd. It was Hyuuga Hinata. Dark ink-blue hair, milky skin, and eerily captivating violet pearl eyes. She was standing there all by herself, wringing her hands. She seemed eager to join in on the festivities while at the same time terrified of all the excitement around her. Something made him want to go give her a slap on the back and knock all of the nervous insecurities out of her. So he did.

"Oy! Hinata-san! This festival is great isn't it?" He had forgotten that his hands were filled with goodies purchased from all of the vendors, so he dropped some stuff that he quickly picked back up. His fat froggy purse, Gama-chan, stuck out of his pocket, and a fried squid on a stick hung out of the corner of his mouth.

"Good evening Naruto-kun," Hinata said shyly from under her dark, ink-blue bangs, gasping a little for breath as she recovered from the smack on the back that she had received from him.

"Are you here alone?"

"Yes," she blushed.

"Me, too! Do you want to ride the roller coaster with me?"

"Okay..." Hinata's whole face turned bright red.

Naruto had wondered why her face suddenly turned so red. _Well, she's always been really shy_. He brushed the thought aside. He pulled out his fat froggy purse and paid the ride vendor.

"Ooo, let's sit in front! Roller coasters are best when you're at the very front."

He turned to share his mirth with Hinata, but saw only that she wore an expression of sudden terror in her pearly eyes.

"Ne, Are you okay Hinata?"

Hinata trembled a little but nodded her head. "I'm…I'm just a little scared of roller coasters, that's all," she managed to squeak out.

"Oh, well, it's okay if you don't want to ride, Hinata." He figured that's why her face had turned red. He also inwardly chastised himself. Even he knew that sometimes his thick head didn't readily register the feelings and thoughts of others no matter how well intentioned he was.

Then he saw a look of determination grab a hold of the anxiety-ridden one on her face.

"No, I want to do this...especially because I'm scared of it."

Naruto burst out in a toothy grin. He admired her gutsiness.

They boarded the front cart of the ride, and as the safety bar came down, he could see Hinata grab onto it with a death grip, her knuckles quickly turning white. He watched as she tried to keep her eyes on the tracks right in front of them instead of looking at all the loops, twirls, and falls that awaited them beyond that.

"Hinata."

She seemed to startle a bit at the sound of his voice and then visibly calm a little down. She looked over at him, wide eyes questioning.

"Yes?"

"It helps to scream, just scream and let all your fear out through your scream."

"Okay," she nodded timidly as she contemplated this piece of advice.

And then they were off, flying through the air, dropping out of the sky, twisting and turning as if possessed by a vortex. Hinata's screams were not dainty or squeaky but hearty explosions that no one would have expected from some a tiny unassuming girl.

As the ride ended and slowed to a stop, Naruto looked over at her and saw her panting like she had just fought a chuunin battle with her cousin Neji.

"You okay?" he asked, a little worried it may have been too much for her.

Hinata looked at him, at first still catching her breath, but then she suddenly broke into a smile. "Yes, very okay."

"Did you like it?"

"Yes," she said as she looked up at the coaster. "It was my first roller coaster ride."

"Really?"

"Yeah, I was always too scared to ride, but now, I'm not scared anymore. Not at all," she said as she smiled brightly and triumphantly at him. "Thank you, Naruto-kun."

"What? I didn't do anything," he chuckled.

They got off to make room for the next riders in line and walked back out into the heart of the festival.

They spent the rest of the night trying out all the different rides and buying lots of junk food. He was still puzzled by why her face turned red every time he spoke to her. The night was over too quick, and soon, he was walking her home.

At first they walked on in silence, the noise of the festival drifting away as they went along further and further away from it. It wasn't an awkward silence, just the sort of silence between two people who felt comfortable with each other's company. But it was Hinata that broke the silence.

"Naruto-kun...I.."

"Eh?" He looked at her and watched puzzled as she looked ahead and took a deep breath. Her eyes closed and she exhaled slowly. She opened her eyes and looked up at him. The two of them stopped at the corner of an intersection in a residential area. A few street lights dotted the crossing paths. The rest of the scene was bathed in moonlight.

"When I was growing up, my father was very strict on me because I was the heir to the family's power, but I couldn't live up to his expectations. I tried to train very hard, but I was a failure. Though I kept trying, I didn't believe in myself. Then I saw you in class. You kept failing, too, but you kept going, you believed in yourself. It amazed me. I wanted to be like you, even though I was a failure."

"Hinata-san, you're not a failure. Just look at the battle you fought against Neji! Most people would not have lasted as long as you did."

"I still lost though. Demo, I think I can finally be more confident because I tried my best. Thank you...for showing me what it means to not give up." She smiled gratefully, and then she breathed in and out in a sort of sigh of relief, like she had just lifted a heavy burden off of her shoulders.

"Ah, Hinata, I didn't do anything. And you're NOT a failure," he gave her a pointed look. "You know what? Hey, maybe you could challenge Neji to a fight again. I'll help you train!"

Hinata gave him yet another look of surprise. Then she looked down, contemplating his suggestion. When she looked back up, a smile crept across her face.

"Naruto-kun, the truth is I've already been training to fight him again. And since…since you've beaten Neji before, training with you would be very effective, but isn't that too much of a waste of your time?"

"Nah, I've been wanting to learn more about the Byakuugan and Juuken. I beat Neji because I tricked him, but skill on skill, he's truly a prodigy."

Hinata broke out into another genuinely happy smile.

"Then onegaishimasu, Naruto-kun. Let's train together."

* * *

"One more time Hinata-san!" Naruto cried as he formed the seal for the kage-no-bunshin, a ninja technique that allowed him to make multiple solid clones of himself. They had been training for weeks at a ridiculous pace and intensity on top of their regular training. Naruto was glad for the chance to practice battling against the legendary Hyuuga Byakuugan, a technique that not only allowed the user to see far distances in a 360 degree range, it also made chakra flow visible and thus more attackable.

Outside of his training with Hinata, he was still learning new techniques from Jiraiya, one of the strongest ninjas in the world, who had decided to hang around Konoha for awhile and train Naruto. The 5th Hokage, Tsunade, had taken an interest in Hinata, too, and Hinata has been training with her as well, especially in the art of ninjitsu healing and medicine.

As his image split into twenty clones of himself, Naruto looked at Hinata who had just squatted into a stance with her right foot behind her and her left foot out in front. The nerves and veins around her eyes bulged and pulsed as she initiated her byakuugan. He smirked a bit. With his kage-no-bunshin clones, he knew she couldn't tell which one is the real him because his chakra was evenly distributed across the board. He ran at her with his clones. As they approached her, a number of them jumped to different heights in the air to attack her from different angles. He saw her eyes scanning the crowd and then look straight at him. So different from the Hinata he once knew in school who hid away all the time, and yet the same exact person. Her eyes were so full of determination, so full of the desire to become better. Hinata's upper body twisted a bit as her hand came up for a strike, fingers poised together, and as her body moved in graceful and fluid motions and her eyes flashed with the utter passion and frenzy of battle, a thought struck Naruto: _Kirei…_

Suddenly, he felt the sensation. He'd never seen anyone look so absolutely and stunningly beautiful.

Hinata scanned the horde of Narutos that came at her. She saw them leaping in at her from all different directions. Each of the chakras flowed identical to one another. Then she saw it, the source of all the chakra pulsing slightly larger than all of the others, running straight at her head on. In that moment, all of Hinata's training from infancy up until the past few weeks took over and her body moved in utter symphony to the pulsating matter around her. With one graceful swipe, she zoomed past all of the clones and hit Naruto dead center in the chest. Naruto flew backwards, all of his clones popped into clouds of smoke around him, and he hit the floor sending up sprays of dirt and grass and puffs of dust into the air.

For a second, Hinata was lost in the finish of her attack, and then her face fell into a look of complete horror, and she ran to Naruto. He lay unnaturally still. With her byakuugan, she saw that his chakra flow had completely gone haywire and his chakra source, the one that she had picked out from all of the clones, appeared to be dispersing. The severity of the situation drove her past the point of absolute panic and into a realm of dissociation. She felt as if her mind and body began to act on its own, as if she was a mere spectator, but she was moving and controlling herself at the same time. She was on her knees in no time and placing her hands gently but firmly on Naruto's chest, one hand on top of the other in a triangular formation as she began desperately to heal him.

* * *

The rays of sunlight danced upon his feet as his eyes groggily opened. He squinted at first at the brightness of midday, and then sat himself up slowly propped on his elbows. At the edge of his bed of white sheets and blanket lay a mass of short, ink-blue hair with a pair of arms in thick jacket sleeves wrapped around it.

"Hinata-san?"

The head suddenly popped up and looked at him with wide, pale eyes full of shock. Then they began to well-up with tears.

"Naruto-kun!" Hinata shot forward and did something she never would have dreamed she'd have the guts to do—she hugged Naruto.

"Gomenasai…" came out muffled from where she had buried her face in his shoulder while she shook, hiccupped, and sobbed.

"Hinata-san, what happened? Why are you crying?" He reached one hand around to pat her on the back in an attempt to comfort her.

She backed away from him, grabbing a handkerchief from her pocket and started cleaning her face off.

"I'm sorry, I'm just so happy you're okay…Are you okay? How do you feel?"

"I feel okay…a little stiff…how long have I been lying here?"

"Three days."

"What happened?"

"We were training again…" Her voice trailed off in a sort of faint squeal; it seemed she would break down again at any moment.

Naruto jogged his memory. He remembered the kage no bushin, running towards her, observing her intensely as she executed her attack…his cheeks turned red. Now it was his turn to be speechless.

Hinata covered her face and began sobbing again.

"Ne, Hinata, it was my fault, I was being careless, I was…uh…distracted…"

His cheeks burned bright red again. _Luckily she can't really see me right now_, he thought randomly.

"Hey, what's all the commotion in here?" The 5th Hokage strode into the room. In came a troupe of genins (plus Shikamaru), Kakashi Sensei, Iruka Sensei, and Jiraiya. Sakura ran to the bed. "Naruto! Daijobu deska? Your face is all red!"

"Hahaha," Naruto laughed nervously, "I'm just embarrassed having all of you see me like this."

"You have Hinata to thank for being alive," Tsunada said as she put a reassuring hand on Hinata's shoulder.

All of them looked at her in amazement except for Hinata who was still undone. Apparently this was news to them.

"I've never seen anyone do such chakra healing before. Hinata-chan seems to have discovered her talent for extreme ninja medicine."

All of their eyes grew wide. Tsunade, the 5th Hokage, was famous around the world for her amazing medical ninja abilities. To get a compliment from her on ninja healing techniques was unheard of.

Hinata was still crying, though she seemed to have regained a certain level of composure and was only weeping weakly at this point.

"Naruto's chakra had been reversed in some parts and blocked in others. Apparently her strike to the source of his chakra had sent shock waves throughout his whole system. Hinata was able to heal the entire system."

They all looked at Hinata in disbelief. Neji looked on with an especially curious eye.

"Ah, heheheheh, I was being careless. It was my fault for underestimating Hinata-san," Naruto laughed with one hand behind his head. "Demo, Hinata-san, how did you know which one of my clones was the real me?"

"I saw…sniffle…I saw the difference between the real charka core and the clone cores," breathed Hinata as she wiped her face for the umpteenth time.

Neji's eyes grew wide. Hinata had always been thought to have inherited only a weaker version of the byakuugan in their family. Neji had always been thought of as the born prodigy of the family who had inherited more than the full strength of the byakuugan bloodline limit. He wondered if they had it wrong all along as he looked at his cowering cousin. He tilted his head as if it would help him see her better. _But…she looks the same to me…_he thought as he examined the furrowed brow, the hands clutching the handkerchief in front of her, her eyes hidden under her bangs. He smiled. If she is better, then the promise they made to fight next month would be interesting indeed.

* * *

She'd always been there. He just never realized it. Naruto looked again at the bowl of ramen noodles soaking up the soup. His lips pursed as a thought ran through his head. His eyes suddenly flashed with a look of resolve. He slurped up the rest of the noodles and soup, paid for his meal, and ran off in the direction of the Hyuuga mansion.

* * *

_Note: Sure is fun to revisit these old fanfiction and pat myself on the back for the good parts while shaking may head at the bad writing. I'm working on my second book for both Phoenix Mountain and the Cowboy Ninja series at the same time, so thank you for your patience in advance. ^_^ Thank you for reading, and please look forward to my next chapter revision!_

_tinabot dot com_


	2. Chapter 2

_Thank you to all of my readers, especially those of you who posted reviews and inspired me to write more!_

_Japanese Terms: Konbanwa (good evening) oyasuminasai (good night) daijobu (it's okay, are you all right?) ano (um) edo (um) sunomono (sald of pickled cucumbers and noodle) gomenasai (sorry)_

* * *

Awakenings Ch. 2

The Hyuuga mansion sat steadfast yet elegant like a large, graceful stone against the background of the setting sun. Naruto walked up to the door of the outer wall of the compound. His thoughts wandered back to his tiny, messy apartment filled with used ramen bowl styrofoams and empty milk cartons. Taking a deep breath, he knocked on the door. A young man opened. His hair was tied back, sleek and clean, and his clothes were well-ironed and specially tailored. He looked down his nose at Naruto.

"What is it that you need young sir?"

"Ano, I..I'm here to ..uh…see Hinata."

"Ah, the young mistress. The family is preparing for dinner. Would you mind waiting a bit while I go in to check if she is available to meet with you?"

"Urm, yeah, sure, thank you."

The man closed the door abruptly.

Naruto looked at the fine wood that the door was made of, his gaze rising to the delicate bluish-gray tiles that glistened on the roof in the growing twilight. The sun set behind the hills casting a red glow around the buildings that made up the large mansion. Naruto's lips twisted in uncertainty. Why had he run over here so hastily again? What had he hoped to accomplish?

It was in his nature to jump into things without thinking, just as it was in his nature to choose a direction and see it through to the end. But this was not anything like training or beating an opponent. He couldn't mentally muscle his way through this one. He was at a loss as to what he was going to do. He thought of leaving, but he had all ready announced his presence. They knew he had been here, and it would be terribly rude to run off now. He heaved a sigh.

The door opened again. This time it was a kindly, beautiful lady with long, ink-blue hair cascading down over her shoulders and back. Wrapped around her body was a dark blue kimono with a yellow obi. Flying all over her robes were white cranes taking off from a lake sitting serenely at the bottom over her feet and ankles. She smiled warmly at him.

"Hello Naruto-kun! What a pleasant surprise! We were just about to have dinner! Why don't you come in and join us?"

"Konbanwa, Mrs. Hyuuga. I'm sorry I came at a bad time. It's okay, I've all ready had some ramen…ano…it's okay, I'll see Hinata tomorrow at training."

"No, I insist! Please come in!"

She stepped outside, put a hand behind Naruto and gently pushed him into the walls of the compound while he muttered "I..uh…ano…er…."

Walking past the shadows of the beautifully tended gardens of rocks, plants, and water designed to imitate natural landscape scenes, Naruto slipped off his shoes in the inner entrance as he stepped onto the dark wooden floors. The hallway ahead was lit by small lights positioned on either side high up on the walls. They turned to walk past some stairs made of the same, fine and smooth dark wood. Passing through an enclosed hallway, they took another turn and Naruto gasped as they walked onto a walkway that was wall and paper covered sliding doors to his right and an elegant backyard garden with glimmering pond to his left. By that time, the sun had completed its descent behind the mountains and the moon and stars were shining full force casting everything in crystalline shades of blue, black, and white.

Mrs. Hyuuga slid the door at the center of this walkway back to reveal a medium sized tatami room with a large, square brown table in the center. Around it were arranged four pillows for seating, one on each side of the table. Naruto pulled his eyes away from the breathtaking moonlit garden scene too look upon this dining table. The family dining room was set up like a fine restaurant. The tatami flooring covered the cubical room and fine paper covered the wooden frames of the sliding door. On the wall hung an exquisite scroll adorned with delicate black ink shadings depicting a section of a single bamboo tree leaning to the right. Mrs. Hyuuga shuffled him inside. She pulled the pillow closest to the door facing away from the garden a bit to the right.

"Here, dear, you can sit right here."

At that moment, some servants came in and began to set the table with utensils, plates and bowls. A small, dark blue lilac leaning gracefully out of a white, thin vase was placed at the center of the table.

"Set an extra spot right here. We have a guest tonight. Get an extra pillow seat as well."

Naruto sat down as Mrs. Hyuuga placed herself on the side of the table to his right. They were joined shortly by Hinata's little sister, Hanabi, with dark hair flowing and light violet eyes. She bowed politely to Naruto and took her seat silently at end opposite her mother, adjusting her plain, light blue yukata with dark purple obi as she kneeled. Naruto bowed politely back, looking totally out of place in the elegant setting with his spiky yellow hair clashing with his bright orange jacket and pants. Hyuuga Hiashi, Hinata's father, was the next to join the party. He nodded to Naruto as he took his place across the table from him facing the garden. The servants came quickly and placed hot cups of steaming green tea in front of each seating. Naruto glanced at the pillow that had been placed next to him just inches away and willed with all his might that the redness would not creep across his cheeks.

"So, Naruto, to what do we owe this pleasant visit?"

Hyuuga Hiashi's voice was steady and formal.

"Oh, hehehe, I just wanted to talk to Hinata about what to do for our next session of training…I should have just waited until tomorrow," Naruto lied hoping to the kami-sama that the byakuugan wasn't also a lie detector.

"Nonsense! We're glad you stopped by tonight! You should come by more often Naruto-kun," interjected Mrs. Hyuuga.

"Ah yes, the training," Hiashi seemed to ponder deeply. "How is that coming along?"

"Hinata is amazing! She's getting better every time I train with her. It's not just her use of byakuugan that's improving. Her reflexes are faster, her speed is increasing, and her charka control is crazy! Especially after…ha ha…er, after the accident."

"Yes, I heard about what happened. Are you quite healed from that incident?"

"Heh heh…yes, thanks to Hinata of course. I wouldn't be here if it hadn't been for her. I really underestimated how much she had improved in more ways than one."

Naruto funneled all his will power into preventing his cheeks from turning crimson red.

"Hinata really tries hard to improve, and all that hard work is just paying off right now."

"Ah, I told you, anata, Hinata is late blooming flower," Mrs. Hyuuga said with playful eyes that counter balanced her husband's composed countenance.

"What about you, Naruto? How's your training going?" she encouraged.

"Oh, I think I'm improving, too. I need to speed up my progress or else Hinata will end up being Hokage instead of me!"

"You dream of being Hokage?" Hiashi's left eyebrow raised half an inch.

"Definitely! Everyone will recognize me when I'm Hokage! I want to protect Konoha with my life! It's my dream!" Naruto's earlier trepidation in this awkward situation was washed away as he was caught up again in the life goal he was set on achieving.

"You'll make a wonderful Hokage!" smiled Mrs. Hyuuga.

Hiashi took a contemplative sip of his tea. Hanabi did the same. Surprisingly for one so young, she had the same composed nature as her father. Hiashi placed his tea cup back onto the table. The candles in the room flickered warmly as the breeze from the beautiful moonlit garden outside seeped into their dining area.

"Hinata, do not delay any longer. Your guest and your family have been waiting for you."

A small gasp sounded outside, and Naruto turned his head around just in time to see the short, dark, ink-blue hair peeking out from behind the paper covered sliding door followed by the large, light-violet pearl eyes and cheeks flushed with red. She stepped timidly out from behind the protection of the papered door revealing a miniature version of her mother's kimono with the image a single crane taking flight from a small pool of water elegantly embroidered into the cloth. Again, Naruto willed his cheeks not to flush with red. He never really cared much for what people wore, but there was something very intimate about seeing Hinata in such a beautiful kimono and out of the ordinary clothes she wore that sent chills up his back. _Kirei..._ he thought again, the crane's flight on her clothes were graceful yet powerful like Hinata's movements in battle. He smiled warmly at her.

"Ano…gomenasai…" Hinata apologized as she came into the room. There was a moment where she paused as her eyes fell upon the pillow seat placed strategically next to where Naruto sat. Her father's stern demeanor moved her forward to her place despite her hesitation.

As she took her seat next him, they both set to work internally willing their faces to stop flushing with red hues.

Soon, small bowls were placed in front of them full of miso soup with tofu, seaweed, and the granular miso paste swirling around as the heated liquid rose and fell in the small container. Next came small plates of sunomono, a noodle and cucumber salad. Naruto picked up the black chopsticks that lay on the table with the tips resting on grey stones. The chopsticks had finely carved dark lines, depictions of flowing water, on the other end. He had never dined in such elegance before.

"Everything looks so beautiful and delicious."

"Eat up! You'll need all the energy you can get at the rate the both of you are training! You two, too," Mrs. Hyuuga said cheerfully and smiled warmly at everyone.

They ate in silence for awhile, savoring the delicious meal. The main course of salmon with pickled vegetables and light sauce came next. The light clinking of chopstick against bowl and plate was accompanied by the faint chirping of crickets in the garden outside.

"Tomorrow I will be teaching Hanabi the preliminaries of a special technique that I developed. I would like for the both of you to join us."

Hiashi's unexpected voice broke the peaceful sounds, and the request came more as a command.

Hinata and Naruto looked at each other, the awkwardness of the dinner together with her family drained from their eyes and in its place was astonishment mingled with anticipation. The look on both of their faces seemed to say _Is this for real? _and _A special technique!_ all at once.

"What sort of technique is it?" Naruto asked gingerly, afraid that a poorly chosen intonation in his speech might change his good fortune.

"I've named it the Hidden Kunai of Konoha. The details will be revealed to you at tomorrow's training. The training will occur at the Hyuuga mansion private training grounds. Be there and ready at dawn."

Naruto and Hinata nodded, afraid to say anything else that would make the Hyuuga heir change his mind.

At the end of the meal, the dishes were all cleared away by servants.

"Hinata, why don't you show Naruto where the training grounds are and maybe some of our gardens before he goes," Mrs. Hyuuga said with a sigh.

"You'll have to excuse me, Naruto-kun, I'm a bit exhausted from a long day. Hinata will have to show you out."

"Thank you for inviting me into dinner. It was the most delicious and beautiful dinner I've ever had in my life."

"Oh, I'm so glad you enjoyed it. I'll see you here tomorrow for breakfast then. Oyasuminasai!" Mrs. Hyuuga bowed herself out along with Hiashi and Hanabi who both did the same.

Hinata and Naruto were left alone in the dining room, the table cleared and the pillows set straight. Their privacy allowed them to breathe a little sigh of relief.

"Wow, Hinata, do you eat like this every night?"

She nodded looking embarrassed.

"You're like a princess! At my apartment, I usually just eat a bowl of ramen and that's it. Kakashi sensei sometimes brings vegetables and fruits over and makes me eat them. He says I'll die if I only eat ramen every day."

At that, the two of them laughed. Naruto's laugh ended first, and he watched as Hinata face danced happily in the candlelight.

"So where're the training grounds?"

"Oh, it's around the back."

They went out into the walkway and stepped out into the garden.  
"This garden is amazing."

"We have lots of servants who take care of it. I see them; it takes a lot of work. I don't think I would be very good at keeping a garden looking this beautiful."

"Me neither, but maybe it's worth the effort in order to enjoy being in it."

Hinata nodded in agreement as they looked around at the pleasing way the moonlight and starlight cast shadows and sparkles on the pond water. Koi fish occasionally bobbed up sending ripples across the surface that disappeared under the small bridge that arched over the globular shape of the pond. They walked over the bridge and down the path to the far end of the garden opposite the dining room speculating and debating all the way what the Hidden Kunai of Konoha could be.

They went through the gate which opened onto another path surrounded on both sides by an elongated and intricate rock garden, its tiny pebbles flowing like streams alongside the path itself. The path wound itself around one of the hills that sat behind the mansion. At its end was a tall wall that extended around a large piece of land.

"The private training grounds are meant to safe guard the secret of the Hyuuga training process and the techniques themselves," Hinata explained as she pulled out a key from under her kimono and unlocked the large, solid wood doors that stood at the foot of the high walls. When they stepped inside, Naruto gasped at the large area that had been set aside for training. There was a large patch of open ground as well as plenty of trees toward the back of the complex. It was like a closed in piece of forest land and meadow. To their right was a large building.

"That's a dojo."

Naruto nodded in amazement.

They left the place and headed back across the path between the rivers of pebble, through the garden with the pond, and past the dining room. All the while they discussed the Hidden Kunai of Konoha.

"It sounds like an ultra fast kunai dagger attack," Hinata wondered with a tilt of her head, her voice flowing out in its usual soft and hesitant cadence.

"Maybe its ultra fast and there's tons of them!" returned Naruto.

"How many kunai can you throw at one time?" Hinata inquired.

"Only about 8 really well, 10 sloppily."

"I think I can only do 6 really well, 8 sloppily."

"We should practice multiple kunai throwing! It'll be good basic training. Hopefully, after tomorrow, we may know how to throw 100 at a time!"

Hinata cringed a little. New techniques used to scare her easily because she would worry immediately that she would fail. Through her training for the rematch with Neji, she grew to view new techniques more as potential trump cards to hold against her highly skilled cousin. However, the fear of failure never failed to sit insidiously at the back of her mind, like a poisonous snake poised to strike at any moment.

Naruto saw the look of worry cross her face.

"Daijobu, Hinata. You're probably going to learn the Hidden Kunai of Konoha faster than me, and then I'll have to catch up. But don't get too comfortable! If I'm going to be Hokage, I'm going to have to be stronger than a Hyuuga heir!"

She smiled in response to his encouragement and characteristic brashness. That was what she lacked, his courage to face failure head on. In her mind, she remembered the fight with Neji at the Chuunin preliminary elimination round. _This is my way of the ninja _she had said in the face of his relentless onslaught. Naruto smiled as he saw a look of determination replace the uncertainty a few moments ago.

They had arrived at the inside of the front gates and turned to say goodbye to each other when they suddenly realized something that caused the both of them to freeze and look down at their hands---they were holding hands, fingers linked together, palm to palm. They each wondered in horror how long they had been holding hands and whether anyone had seen them. Their faces both turned bright red and they let go, laughing nervously.

"Edo…haha, I guess I'll see you tomorrow morning Hinata-san!"

"Oyasuminasai, Naruto-kun!"

They both held their hands up a simple gesture of goodbye and smiled nervously. Then Naruto stepped outside the front gate and started down the street. The wooden door closed delicately behind him. Both of their faces still burned bright red.

Up in the third floor of the mansion, the master and mistress of the compound sat together by their bedroom window sipping water. They looked out at the garden outside the dining room and the twilight landscape beyond.

"He has grown quite strong given his circumstances, don't you think?" Mrs. Hyuuga smiled as she drank some more water.

"Yes, quite impressive. He has carried a heavy burden since birth."

"She has grown as well."

Hiashi nodded solemnly at this. He sighed and spoke in a soft, tender voice that was meant only for the ears of his beloved wife.

"Of all the years I trained her, he was able to inspire something in her that I was never able to do."

"It is hard to compete with the love of someone who has the potential of being your life long companion. This is especially hard for parents."

At that, she moved in closer to him and linked her arms around his, leaning against him. They both looked out the window at the full moon that shone like a silver coin in the sky. Hiashi took another sip of water.

"It would be quite fitting for a daughter of Hyuuga to wed a Hokage of Konoha."


	3. Chapter 3

_Thank you to all of my readers, especially those of you who posted reviews and inspired me to write more!_

_Japanese Terms: Deshi (student)Sugoi (terrible, dreadful, terrific, amazing, great, wonderful) Ohayougozaimasu (good morning) Itadakimasu (expression of gratitude before meals) Ne (emphasis, agreement, request for confirmation)_

* * *

Awakenings 3

It was still dark when Naruto stepped into the private training grounds of the Hyuuga family. He had gone right to bed the night before, spent a good while tossing and turning in excitement over the new technique and thoughts of Hinata before he persuaded himself to fall asleep. The Hyuuga family is the oldest noble family of Konoha, known for its many secret and powerful techniques. A technique developed by Hiashi Hyuuga, the main successor of the family, would most definitely be one made of the stuff of legends.

Hinata had shown him in, barely able to contain her own excitement at both learning the new technique and seeing Naruto at her home again so soon after the last visit. Though her steps were still measured and timid, Naruto noticed distinctly the slight bounce and quickened pace she took as they had walked out to the back of the compound. Hanabi was all ready there, decked out in a serious looking, black, one-piece workout uniform that started above her knees and reached up to where her skull connected to her neck. Despite her tiny size and slight frame, one look at her left no question that she was of ninja heritage. Her long, dark hair waved over parts of her face as she moved like a silk mask that framed her alert, pale eyes. She stood on her right foot with her left leg raised up and held against the side of her body pointing towards the sky.

In sharp contrast with her sister's sleek and intimidating appearance, Hinata had on her usual apparel. Her large and thick tan-grey jacket wrapped around her as if protecting her from harsh artic winds. Around her neck hung the blue sash that held the metal forehead protector inscribed with the Konoha symbol. Out of habit, her hands were clasped together in front of her, just below her chin.

Naruto, of course, was still in his bright orange jumper jacket and pants, his forehead protector flashing proudly on his forehead.

The two new arrivals took Hanabi's lead and began stretching and warming up. Framed by the walls of the training ground, the sky above them slowly began to change from dark hues to light blue, red, orange, and yellow. Naruto looked up as he stood up from touching his toes and saw the top of one of the hills next to the mansion. Squinting his eyes a bit, he realized he wasn't hallucinating when he pin pointed a figure standing at the summit of that hill.

"Ano, who's that up there?"

"He's from the branch family. He's to keep a lookout for spies while we train."

Hinata examined Naruto's face as his lips grew taut and his eyes narrowed pensively. She knew he understood the fundamentals of the Hyuuga family politics, the subservience of the branch family to the main family, the cursed mark on their foreheads.

The morning sun had barely peaked over the horizon when the large, wooden doors swung open. In stepped Hyuuga Hiashi, right on time, not a hair out of place. Both daughter's immediately stood at attention, arms to their sides, feet together, and bowed low facing their father. Naruto, unused to such formality, followed suite a beat behind the other two. The Hyuuga successor bowed in return. Without a word, he walked through the clearing towards the trees in the back. The three deshi followed obediently. Hyuuga senior stopped in the middle of the large patch of trees.

They watched him, waiting, anxious. Even Hanabi's placid eyes betrayed a hint of anticipation. The two young progeny of the byakuugan bloodline limit focused their chakra and the nerves and veins bulged around their eyes enhancing the 360 degrees, spherical range vision they had been endowed with at birth. Naruto watched intensely, looking feverishly for whatever it was he might be missing.

Hiashi stood for awhile, his dark hair falling straight down over his shoulders and back. His autumn robes, layered in gray and white, hung off of his frame with little to no movement, as if he were a stone statue that stood amongst the trees. Then it came, the slightest breeze that had stolen its way into the walls, slipped down the steep rise, and given movement to the still air trapped by the fortifications against curious eyes. The trees around them shook ever so slightly, and leaves whose joint to the branches and twigs had been weakened by the advent of fall broke loose and trickled to the floor. The sound of clinking metal and leaf flesh being sliced filled the silence around them. The three young ninjas gasped. Naruto looked at a few leaves falling near him and saw that they had be cut perfectly in two down the middle where the stem had held the two halves together. He looked back up at Hiashi and realized that he was about 5 yards away. He turned around and looked behind him. His eyes grew wider as he saw 10, 20, 30 yards away from here he stood, all the leaves as far as he could see were in the same pristinely sliced state, some still twirling their way to the grassy floor.

"Sugoi…"

The word escaped Naruto's lips in a whisper before he was aware he was speaking out loud. He looked at Hinata and Hanabi who were both wearing wide-eyed expressions as well.

"That," Hiashi finally said, "is what you are to accomplish—the Hidden Kunai of Konoha—a chakra distance attack."

He began to make his way out of the trees and out to the clearing. They followed quietly behind. He went over to a shed behind the dojo and opened it, effortless pulling out and lifting 3 large wooden poles about a foot in diameter. He brought them to the part of the clearing about 10 yards away from the tree line and slammed them into the ground. Each pole stood steadfast in the place where Hiashi had planted them as if they had always been there. The three youths knew instinctively to stand one in front of each pole with Naruto and Hanabi on the sides and Hinata at the middle pole. They all stood facing their respective targets and the trees beyond. Hiashi pulled back the sleeve over his right hand and held it up in front of him, fingers together, thumb tucked in, with the palm facing his chest area, and slightly angled outward as if challenging them to a fight.

"Chakra flow and control is at the heart of the Hidden Kunai. To use your chakra like a knife weapon, you must concentrate both on giving it a solid form outside your body and maintaining a sharp edge. Your task now is to mold your chakra at the tips of your fingers, extend it outside of your body in a solid yet invisible form, and then sharpen its shape. To best achieve this, you must mentally picture a blade extending from your fingertips."

He walked up to each of the three poles and made a motion with his hand where it flipped palm down and slid with a horizontal cutting motion at each target. Upon each pole was left a mark as if he had pulled out a kunai and actually made a cut mark on the wood.

"No part of your body should touch the target. Your task this morning is to cut the pole in half. Begin."

Three pairs of young eyes flared with determination as three right hands rose to the same gesture that their teacher's hand had just taken before striking, angled out with palm facing their chest, challenging their target to defy them. From the tips of each of their fingers sprouted what looked like blue, misty flames. The translucent flames seemed to turned and twist as they tried to make a solid form. Then they struck, Hanabi first and Naruto and Hinata a step behind her. The second mark on the poles varied. Hanabi's mark was the thinnest and deepest, demonstrating that her chakra blade had been the sharpest. Hinata's mark was the second thinnest. Naruto's mark was the thickest and shallowest of the three, indicating his blade was the bluntest.

"Visualize the blade."

"Pull your hand farther back to make the most of your strike."

"Stand up straight. Good posture allows for good chakra flow."

They went on, striking again and again with Hiashi making comments here and there to each of them. Naruto was thoroughly enjoying himself, watching his mark get thinner and deeper with each strike. He liked Hiashi's attentive and direct teaching style. Naruto had become accustomed to Jiraiya's usual process of teaching him—show a technique and then run off to harass women while he practiced by himself tirelessly. The steady flow of feedback from the Hyuuga successor sped up his progress.

The sun had fully come out from behind the hill when the first pole broke in half. Hanabi had cut through hers first. Soon after, Hinata's fell, and then Naruto's. The three of them stood, panting from the effort, sweat glistening on every face.

"We must not leave evidence of our training. Rake up the leaves and pull out the wooden posts. Burn all of it in the fire pit."

At that, Hiashi bowed. All three students bowed in thanks, and then watched as he walked in a stately manner out the wooden doors. They were soon at work raking leaves and lugging the leftovers of their morning's worth of training over to the fire pit in the corner hidden behind some patches of tall grass. The smoke was quickly billowing up, erasing their efforts from the prying eyes of others. Naruto looked up on the top of the hill for the Hyuuga Branch family member. He was gone.

They sauntered back up the path towards the main house through the path of rocks. When they entered the garden, they saw that a table had been set for five outside, and Hinata's father and mother were all ready seated. The last plate of breakfast food was just being put into place when they sat down. Naruto smiled and nodded to the server in thanks.

"Ohayougozaimas!"

"Ohayou, Naruto-kun," returned Mrs. Hyuuga with a bright, morning smile, her ink-blue locks glistening in the morning sun.

"Wow, what a spread! Do you always have meals together?"

"I suppose at least once or twice a day for the most part," said Hinata quietly.

"That's great! So this is what you do when you have a family!" Naruto said, rather absent-mindedly blurting out his observation. Still oblivious to the impact of his remark, he began to roll up his sleeves to eat. Both a look of sadness and guilt flashed across the eyes of the Hyuuga family members, guilt for all the meals they spent barely saying a word to each other, and sadness for Naruto—his life as an orphan was all too real to them at that moment.

"I'm starving!"

"Go ahead then, dear," Mrs. Hyuuga said kindly.

"Itadakimasu!" Naruto said loudly, his hands clapped together and held a prayer pose before picking up the chopsticks and poising them for optimal food retrieval. The Hyuuga family, unaccustomed to this outburst that was so common in the households of other families, all awkwardly smiled and said the same traditional saying of thanks at a much lower volume.

"How was training this morning?"

"It was great! Hinata and Hanabi were doing much better than me, especially Hanabi. Ne, Hanabi?"

Hanabi's eyes looked furtively at Naruto in disbelief he was addressing her at all, and then managed a shrug in response.

"And Hyuuga Sensei was a great teacher! He actually stays and gives me feedback while I'm training! He doesn't run off to harass girls like that Pervert Sennin Jiraiya while I'm working my butt off!"

At that moment, Hiashi choked on the tea he was sipping, a good amount it spraying out of his mouth. Hinata bit her lip to keep from smiling, Hanabi's lips twisted in a weird way, and Mrs. Hyuuga covered her mouth with her sleeve letting out a muffled giggle, and then lowered her hand from her face and let out a full laugh. With that, the two Hyuuga daughters started laughing, and even Hiashi managed a half smile. All the while Naruto sat a bit puzzled. He wasn't quite sure what it was he had said, but it seemed to have amused everyone. He put his right hand behind his head and laughed lightly.

Hinata noticed Naruto giving his I-don't-know-what's-going-on smile, a look she had seen on his face ever since she first saw him. At that moment, she wanted to lean over and give him a reassuring hug.


	4. Chapter 4

_Thank you to all of my readers, especially those of you who posted reviews and inspired me to write more!_

_onigiri (rice ball) kawii (cute) nani (what) gomen (sorry) tempura (food fried in a layer batter) Itadakimasu (expression of gratitude before meals)_

* * *

Awakenings 4 

Naruto strolled down the streets of Konoha wondering what it was that Hinata wanted to meet with him so secretly about.

"Meet me tomorrow in the thicket of trees past our usual training grounds at lunch." She had managed to say this to him rather quietly, even for Hinata standards, as she was letting him out of the Hyuuga mansion compound after another morning of training with her father. They had been at it for almost a month now, with Naruto spending almost every morning training with Hiashi and had been invited to join the Hyuuga family breakfasts. He had never eaten so healthy before.

He stepped off of the paved ground onto grass and dirt under trees bursting with autumn colors all around him. The sky was a bright blue with the occasional wisp of cloud floating by. The rays of sunlight that broke through the foliage and the shadows of leaves played on his features. Walking past their training ground, an opening in the thick of the forest, Naruto thought of the accident and how it had happened. He looked down and shook his head. As he entered the tree line, a breeze gently weaved in and out of the branches. Leaves fell lightly, drifting lackadaisically to the ground. Naruto felt the urge to test out the Hidden Kunai—or at least his own rough version of it. They had advanced to the stage of training where they were able release their chakra from their bodies, allowing it to seep out of their clothing, and then forming it into multiple solid forms floating outside their bodies.

_Even a hidden kunai blade would be great to try out right now_. Naruto thought about the thrill he felt when he watched the wooden pole target 10 yards in front of him slice in half when he finally mastered forming one solid chakra form 1 inch outside his body and sent flying through the wood. The multiple forms have proved to be the most challenging part of the training sequence so far. Hiashi, however, had forbidden them from using the technique or any part of what they've learned so far outside of the private training grounds. It drove him crazy not being able to practice the Hidden Kunai for more than a couple hours a day.

The trees grew thicker, growing closer and closer together, allowing little ground unmolested by their roots. Naruto scanned the area, listening intently. Hinata was pretty good at hiding.

"Naruto-kun," came a soft voice from up in a tree with especially thick undergrowth and plenty of dark shadows to disappear in. Up in depths of the shade, Hinata's head popped out. Naruto's face broke out in a smile.

She jumped down lightly from her perch with a large brown satchel slung over her right shoulder.

"Oi, Hinata, so why the secret meeting on our day off from training? Heh heh hehe…" He tried to laugh naturally to cover up the butterflies in his stomach. He was grateful they were hidden in shade that would cover up some of the blush he could feel burning his face. The night before he had had waking dreams of what might transpire during their clandestine meeting that had him tossing and turning for awhile. _Why had Hinata wanted to meet with me in this hidden place? Maybe…_

Hinata's face was full of furtive looks over her shoulder and trepidation, like she was guarding something others would readily rip from her arms. This was quite unlike her and took Naruto off his guard.

"What is it Hinata?" he asked in a more serious tone.

"Ano…" Hinata started nervously. To his further surprise, Naruto watched as the veins and nerves around her pale, pearl eyes bulged. She had hyper-activated her byakuugan 360 vision and was taking one last survey of the area. Satisfied, she allowed the chakra to move more evenly around her body away from her eyes. The large brown bag was put gently on the floor and Hinata kneeled down to it. With one hand she beckoned Naruto to kneel down as well and to lean in closer to her. The proximity of their faces was a little unnerving for Naruto, but Hinata seemed unphased, too focused on what she was about to tell him.

"Ano…I was cleaning my room two days ago. I usually don't clean out my closet too often, but I did this time, and when I did I found a trick door in the back corner," she said quickly in her usual soft and timid voice, but Naruto could hear the urgency and excitement in it nonetheless.

"It popped open when I wiped it with a cloth. I must have triggered it somehow. Well, inside I found this."

At that she pulled out something large and long wrapped in a brown cloth. She held it to Naruto in a gesture that asked him to take it. Naruto held it in one hand and unwrapped it with his other hand. Inside the folds of the brown cloth was a thick old scroll. He stared at it for a moment in awe. Its labeling cover was blank.

"I didn't know what to expect from it, I didn't think much of it at first," Hinata's voice trailed off, her wide eyes full of amazement.

Naruto undid a strip of cloth tied around the scroll that kept it closed. Slowly and carefully he unfurled the old paper and began to read its contents. After a moment or so of silent reading and Hinata looking intently at his face as if waiting for him to confirm that her conclusions were right, his jaw dropped.

"This…it's some kind of secret technique that the first hokage used?"

"That seems to be what it claims. I don't know. It won't identify the technique. It looks like some sort of copy of the original. It must have taken weeks to completely copy the original into this scroll."

"You know, back when we were taking our genin exams, I was tricked into stealing a scroll that contained the instructions for the kage no bushin. That's how I learned it. When I took the scroll, it actually had a lot more techniques in it that I didn't get a chance to learn. There were other scrolls, too, probably full of techniques."

"Do you think this is real?" Hinata whispered in disbelief.

"There's only one way to find out."

Hinata nodded in agreement as she stuck her hand into her bag and pulled out a large cloth. She spread it on some flat ground next to the tree. She sat down on it with her bag and began to pull out sandwiches, fruits, bottles of various drinks, and onigiri triangular-shaped rice balls. It looked like she raided the local convenience store.

"It'll take us awhile to read the whole thing."

Naruto smiled and sat down on the cloth next to Hinata, leaning back against the tree. He unrolled the scroll across their adjacent laps as Hinata picked up a sandwich and handed it him and then unwrapped an onigiri for herself.

The sun moved slowly across the sky and the shadows of the trees around them changed angles accordingly like giant sundials marking the late afternoon hour. The cloth that Hinata had spread on the floor was now littered with used food wrappers and empty bottles. The two of them had spent the afternoon intensely reading the scroll, pausing here and there to discuss the finer details of the technique. Finally, they reached the end of it. Hinata rolled up the scroll loosely and leaned it against the tree while Naruto tossed their garbage in a small trash bag that Hinata had brought along. Hinata pulled the cloth up from the floor, dusted it a bit, then folded it up and put it back in her satchel.

"Well," said Naruto, "let's try it out, see if it's any good."

He stood up, stretched his body and jumped around to warm up a bit and loosen up his stiff joints. He kneeled on the ground, put his hands together in front of him and began forming a series of seals. He suddenly hit his hands down against the ground, palms down. His eyes were fixed on a grassless spot on the ground directly in front of him. The soil suddenly began to shift slightly and out popped a small sprout with two tiny leaves opened up over a white, newly germinated stem.

Naruto heaved a sigh of disappointment. This was just like when he was learning the Toad summoning technique and started out with just a tadpole.

Hinata let out a amused laugh. He looked over at her with an self-conscious smile.

"This always happens to me," he said. He looked up at her cringing in embarrassment.

"I think it's kawaii," Hinata said, feeling that urge again to give him a reassuring hug, but she held back and just smiled.

"Now, you try," Naruto encouraged with a toothy smile.

"Mmh," Hinata nodded cheerfully.

She got down on her knees as well at another patch of grassless ground a yard away from Naruto's little plant. She formed the seals and then hit the ground with her palm. A tiny sprout about the same size as Naruto's came out. Naruto went over to her, crouched down, and examined the fruit of her efforts. The two of them were on the floor staring at the little plant for a moment. Naruto gave her a delving look, asking an unspoken question.

"I didn't hold back, I swear," Hinata responded in her soft voice and the shrugged. He was always demanding that she give her all during their trainings. Naruto gave her one more inquiring look before turning his attention back to the little plant.

"aaaaaaaaAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" he suddenly said loudly and pointed accusingly at Hinata's plant with a look of indignation on his face.

"Nani?"

"You're plant has THREE leaves!"

"Where?"

"Right THERE!" he pointed with emphasis.

Hinata looked again.

"I only see two."

"There's a mini one hiding under that one! See it? Right there!"

"Oh,…I don't think that counts."

"It COUNTS!" His pointing finger swung over to Hinata and his eyes stressed the finality of his statement.

Before Hinata could say anything else, Naruto was back at his own plant, gently lifting the two baby leaves. Grunting in dissatisfaction, he was back to making seals again and slamming his palms against the ground. Hinata followed his lead. Their respective plants grew with each execution of the technique. At the end of over an hour of repeating this process, the two of them had what looked like miniature trees that that came up to their knees. They were panting with noticeable exhaustion. So much for their day off from training.

"I think we need to stop now. This technique uses a lot of chakra and we've been pushing our chakra to the limits with the Hidden Kunai," Hinata said as she caught her breath.

"You're right. I feel worn out all ready. And starved. We don't have any more food, do we?"

"No. Gomen."

Naruto waved her apology away with a loose hand.

"I'll treat you to ramen tonight."

"No, it's okay."

"No, really, you brought our lunch. I'll get dinner. Is it okay with your family?"

"Oh, my mother and father are out on business tonight. It's just Hanabi and me."

"Okay, then let's go get Hanabi and have some ramen. It's the least I can do after everything your family has done for me. Plus it'll be fun."

He turned his head towards her and smiled in response to her look of inquiry. He got to his feet, turned to her and held out his hand. She took it and was pulled to her feet. "We can come back here and try this again later," Naruto said as they gathered up their things to go.

* * *

The sun was setting when Hanabi, Hinata, and Naruto sat in front of three, large steaming bowls of house special ramen brimming with vegetables, noodles, fish paste, and shrimp tempura. Floating around in the soup were dissolved miso paste, various spices, and small circular slices of green onions. They clapped their hands together simultaneously and said, 

"Itadakimasu!"

The roads and buildings around them were golden in the disappearing sunlight and changing hues of orange, red, and yellow. The streets were winding down as people made their way home for dinner. Strolling down a path perpendicular to the one the ramen stand stood on was a girl in a red dress and short, pink hair held back with a blue forehead protector bearing the sign of Konoha. She had spotted Naruto but what stopped her in her tracks was when she noticed the company he was in. For a moment, she stood and watched as the three ate, talked, and laughed as if they had done this every night of their lives.

* * *

Screams of pain filled the air. 

"You understand your role as a member of the branch family."

More screams.

The members at the meeting watched on uncomfortably as the Hyuuga branch family member grabbed his forehead in pain. He was on his knees in front of Hiashi.

"Do not forget your place."

Hiashi walked away as the man who had been screaming in pain threw him a murderous look.


	5. Chapter 5

_Thanks for reading everyone! All hail the makers of Naruto :D Thanks to all my reviewers who keep inspiring me to write more! Hope you're having as much fun reading as I am writing!_

_Japanese Terms: Daijobu deska? (Are you all right?) Daijobu des (It's all right.)_

* * *

Awakenings 5

Hinata sat high up in the tree at the edge of town, hidden in its dark shadows. She fit snugly on a wide branch that was surrounded by a thick outgrowth of other branches that grew so close together they provided a sort of hidden, uneven platform way up in the trees. It was one of Hinata's many hiding spots. She had a wide and fairly far reaching view of the part of Konoha's streets as well as the surrounding forest area. She leaned her body against the tree truck, looking out at the view of tree tops and the occasional flying bird or buzzing insect. The sun was making its slow, early-afternoon stroll across the sky away from its high noon position. There were times when she would spend a hours up there enjoying the view, the peace and quiet, the solitude.

Shifting her body and swinging her legs over the big branch, she turned to face the Konoha view. Though she still enjoyed the all one existence, she waited eagerly for a glimpse of spiky, yellow hair in the distance headed her way. Again, as has been routine for quite a few months now, she was meeting Naruto for another training session. Today they had agreed to spend some more time working on the secret technique in the scroll Hinata had found hidden in the Hyuuga mansion. Hinata had shown Naruto this particular spot and they had agreed to meet there as was usual for their secret training sessions and travel through the trees silently in order to avoid the gaze of curious eyes.

She looked forward to seeing him, looked forward to his smile, his brazen ways, and the uncertainty she saw in his eyes despite his outward confidence. She remembered the many days at the academy when he was the brunt of class jokes, the laughing stock of the class, the last one to get picked for teams…she remembered feeling bad for him. But it wasn't the pity that made her develop her want to comfort him over the years, it was the admiration she had for his continual struggle against all the odds. She saw the hurt in his eyes when the other children laughed at him, but he came back to class every day, pushing through their taunts, even if meant getting in trouble with his silly antics. She saw how on the first day of academy, when a member of the family was to be present, that Naruto had come alone, how all the adults threw him looks of distaste and how their children followed suite. She had seen the sadness in his eyes, but also how he would wash this away with talks of his dream to be hokage.

From afar she saw all of this, always too afraid to approach him, and even more so when she realized she had feelings him…she had spent many of her hours in solitude pondering the meaning of her feelings, how they had came out of her desire to care for this person who had won her admiration. She knew she had a choice, to act on these feelings and get the attention of the object of her admiration and affections or to hide. Her choice was never completely one way or the other, wavering back and forth. But for the most part, she chose to hide, to run away from the possibilities both good and bad. That was her problem, she often was afraid of the negative consequences and was often willing to throw away the positive consequences to avoid the negative. She has fought this fear, though, all her life, and she had managed to accomplish some things. However, it was the fear that really held her back from her true potential. Even she understood this, that there was a last stretch of the track that she never ran, never finished.

The fight with Neji flashed across her mind. Naruto's voice cheering her on in the background, and her decision that she couldn't leave that last stretch undone, not when Naruto was watching, not when a person she admired for always fighting until the end, until he could do no more, until he absolutely had nothing more to give and would then give some more. Then she had done it, fought Neji and held back nothing, going all the way, even near death. She took a deep breath. And then there was the night she confessed to Naruto that she admired him and why she did. How happy she was when he offered to help her train. How wonderful it has been spending time with him. How much she looked forward to seeing him every day.

In the distance she saw it, the head of spiky, yellow hair bobbing its way down the street in her direction. Before she could break out in a smile, she noticed that next to him was a head of pink hair. The two of them came closer, and Hinata could see them talking and laughing with each other. _Sakura_. Feeling a sort of panic, a number of things ran through her head. _Naruto wouldn't hurt me. Wait, we haven't promised each other anything. He's been on the same team with her for so long. He's always made his feelings for her known to the world. _The day they had accidentally held hands. The training they've done together. All of the smiles and talking and laughing. All the time together. It all seemed to melt into nothing. She felt her chest sinking, as if a black hole had opened up where the space between her lungs was supposed to be, draining everything into it, into a meaningless oblivion. Unknowingly, her body sunk with her spirit, slumping forward like a blow up doll loosing air through a rip. She leaned listlessly against the tree trunk, her head hanging forward, unable to muster the will to do anything else. She saw nothing else of the simple scene before her, lost in some dark dimension of her mind.

She was lay like this for awhile until a pair of blue eyes under spiky, yellow hair peeked up cheerfully through the thick of branches. The merriment in Naruto's eyes quickly disappeared when caught sight of Hinata. He moved lightly towards her.

"Hinata? Daijobu deska?"

She woke a bit from her trance, realizing that he was there in front of her.

"Huh? Oh, ano, I'm not feeling so good today."

"Let's go to the hospital then," Naruto replied, his eyes full of concern.

"No, it's all right, I think I'm just tired. I just don't feel like training today." She avoided looking into his eyes.

"Oh, uh, okay, I can walk you home then."

"No, no, it's okay." She willed herself to move out of her place and onto a lower branch. A hand came down on her shoulder and gently held her in place.

"Hinata, what's wrong?"

"I'm just not feeling like doing anything today, that's all." She tried to pull away from his hand. It burned her shoulder to feel his touch. It hurt. He held firm.

"Hinata, I'm not letting you walk home alone like this. What's wrong?"

She turned her head away from him. Unable to say anything else, she just kept her eyes downcast holding back tears that threatened to burst out of her pale eyes. _I can't do this. _She wanted to run far, far away from this place, far from him, away to a place where there was only her. The only place she ever felt safe.

Naruto felt a sickness in his stomach. In the past few months, he had never seen Hinata act like this. He had no idea what had brought it on. _I wonder if she was like this a lot before we started spending time together. _Dense as he knew himself to be, he could see that she was suffering from a wound that sprung from something deep inside her.

"Hinata," he said in a firm voice, "I'm not letting you leave until you tell me what's wrong."

His words were met with more silence, more turning away, more hiding of the eyes. His eyes softened.

"Hinata-chan…" he started.

Hinata was too lost in her own world of self-pity to notice the addition of the term of endearment he added to the end of her name. He had never ever called her _chan_, little Hinata, in tone that meant _his_ Hinata-chan.

She could not, however, ignore what he did next. With his free hand, he reach up and slipped it around the cheek of her turned-away face, guiding it to turn towards him. His lips reached up, and he kissed her forehead. For a moment, it seemed everything that had been flowing through her head stopped in shock. Then, with her face now firmly cupped in his two hands, she watched in utter disbelief as he looked into her eyes with a tender smile on his face, his bright blue eyes looking warmly into her wide, pale eyes that were full of shock

Inside Naruto's head he screamed, _WHAT THE HECK AM I DOING? HAVE I GONE CRAZY?_ At the same time, he felt a stream of affection and concern spring up inside of his chest, and he wanted so much to see her smile again.

"Let's go get some ice cream, ne?"

Hinata's face went through a transition from shock to confusion. Then she gave Naruto a look that broke his heart. Her eyes were desperate, pleading silently to him for something that he could not understand. Large pools of tears formed at the bottom of her eyes and streamed down her face as her lips trembled from the feelings she could not utter. She looked down as the tears dripped off her chin onto her two hands which were clasped tightly in her lap. She tried to turn away, her face and body trembling. _I want to go. I don't want to be here_, she thought again.

Naruto refused to release her and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her in a deep embrace, cradling her head with is right hand over his left shoulder. He knew she wanted to leave. Her whole being was trying to pull away from him. He wouldn't let her go.

"Ne, Hinata, daijobu des. I'll help you through this, whatever it is. Just don't go away. Please."

Hinata started to sob silently, her crying coming out airily as she tried to make as little noise as possible. With that release, her whole body contracted and loosened, as if she was suffering from some prolonged seizure that came and went slowly, throbbing through her body. At that point, she was helpless to his hold on her. Naruto shifted his body so that he sat next to her, facing the other direction on the branch towards the trees and away from the Konoha streets, facing her. He wrapped his arms around her straining and shaking body, pulling it to lean into his adjacent body, burying her face into his chest as he rested his right cheek lightly on her head, her blue hair silky against his skin.

He was still puzzled over what had brought this on all of a sudden. Why he had found her like this? Why he was comforting her in his arms? Why he had kissed her on the forehead? In a way, it seemed like a dream that was playing tricks on the routine happenings of what was supposed to be another day of training together, another day with her. He stroked her head and shifted so that his lips and nose where pressed against her head. _What's wrong?_ he thought towards her as he felt the sobs and hiccups convulse her body. Why was he so unrestrained in showing his affections to her today of all days? _The talk with Sakura might have played a part_, he thought to himself.

After a long while, Hinata's sobs began to subside. She pulled away from him, this time only to pull a handkerchief out of her pocked and clean off her face.

"Gomenasai," she said, her voice still shaking from crying, and she tried to wipe the spot on his jacket that was wet with her tears.

"Daijobudes, Hinata-chan."

He put one hand up to her cheek and wiped away another tear that was making its way down her cheek with his thumb.

"Do you feel better now?"

"Mmh," she said, trying to sound a bit cheerful, though she still hiccupped from the crying. He grabbed the handkerchief from her hand and wiped her face. He smiled brilliantly at her.

"So, how about some ice cream?"

"Mmh," she said again, managing a weak smile.

His heart soared at the sight of this.

"Let's go then!"


	6. Chapter 6

_Thanks again to everyone who's reading this! Thanks to reviewers who keep encouraging me and giving me great feedback! I'm having so much fun writing, it's been my break from my regular work these days to give my brain a chance to have fun. Hope you enjoy this chapter as much as I enjoyed writing it!_

_Special thanks to the creators of Naruto for giving us such a great Narutoverse to enjoy : )_

_Japanese Terms: Daijobu (It's okay) ne (huh? Don't you agree?) oniisan (brother) ganbatte (go for it, keep at it) So des (I see) Jamatane (goodby, see you later)_

* * *

Awakenings 6

Hinata sat again in the secret meeting spot up in the trees at the edge of the Konoha city streets. She sighed and shook her head. Her little breakdown yesterday had cost them a day of training. She sat in waiting, her mind processing at hyper speed the flood of thoughts that ran through her head. She wasn't sure how to feel, what to do, and she had never felt so nervous about seeing Naruto before which was a level of anxiety that surprised even her.

Then she saw it, the spiky, yellow hair making its way toward her. Her heart sank again when she saw Sakura's pink hair bobbing along next to his again. Instinctively, she wrapped her arms around herself as if the air had just dropped 20 degrees. This time, though, she didn't look away. She stared at them, watching them walking, talking, and smiling. She took a deep breath, like the night she told Naruto about how she admired him, and her eyes stayed fixed on them.

She watched as they waved goodbye to each other. Sakura stopped and turned to go down the street to her left as Naruto headed straight into the forest. Hinata bit her lower lip. She realized this was just like the fight with Neji, she had the choice to either see it through to the end or run away. She was torn both ways.

Naruto's cheerful blue eyes poked up again from the thick of branches like they had yesterday. She looked into his face as he came towards her smiling. Simultaneously she was filled with fear and terror of the pain he could inflict upon her and the hope and beauty of how happy she would be if he would let her love him and love her in return. She got up and stood her ground. She wanted to trust him. It was time to run the last stretch, even if it would leave her devastated in the end, she would at least know in the end that she had given it her all and then some.

"Are you feeling okay today?" Naruto asked carefully as he examined her.

"Mmh," she said, giving him the most cheerful smile she could muster.

"Ano, sorry about yesterday, I made us miss our training session."

"It's okay; I think we needed the break. Missing our session yesterday and your father not being able to teach this morning seemed to allow my chakra to be fully replenished. I think I've been running on low for awhile."

He gave a toothy smile as he rubbed the back of his head with his right hand. He felt nervous. The affection he had shown her yesterday made him wonder how he was supposed to act now that things were "back to normal" so to speak. His every movement in front of her right now felt awkward to him.

"Let's go then!" Trying to shake off the discomfiture he felt, Naruto jumped up onto the branch next to her and took off silently to the next tree beginning their hidden journey to their secret training grounds. In mid-air, he felt something soft, warm, and slightly rough slip into his hand. When he landed, he realized Hinata stood next to him on the branch of the next tree, her hand firmly wrapped around his. His eyes grew wide for a moment as he processed what had happened. Then he blushed and, unable to look at her face, he looked slightly downwards shyly. His fingers wrapped around hers as well and they took off, branch to branch, tree to tree, hand in hand.

* * *

In the thicket of trees, they formed the seals and hit the ground with the palms of their hands. Their respective trees that had started as tiny germinating plants a week ago were turning out nicely into full grown trees.

Naruto stood looking thoughtfully at his tree, his eyes narrowed pensively.

"Was the first hokage an extreme ninja gardener or something? Cuz I'm trying to figure out what I'm supposed to do with this technique," he pondered out loud and scratched his head.

Hinata laughed, her amusement ringing through the air like wind chimes blowing in a light breeze. Naruto smiled awkwardly, not quite sure what it was about what he said that had made her laugh so. Hinata felt again the urge to hug him and comfort him.

"Your tree looks a lot healthier than mine," Naruto said with a tone of dissatisfaction.

It was true; Hinata's tree had a lusher, greener foliage and looked significantly larger than his. He looked disappointedly up at his own tree and was about to turn and give Hinata another embarrassed smile when he felt two small arms wrap around his neck and Hinata's soft cheek pressed up against his.

"Daijobu, I cheat and use my byakuugan to better control the chakra," Hinata said in her delicate and shy yet cheerful voice into his ear, "but you'll get better than me because a Hokage can't lose to a Hyuuga heir, ne?"

Naruto felt chills go up and down his spine, his face burning hot. He was a bit frozen in place.

"Ganbatte…Naruto."

With that, she let him go and went back to her own tree, her face burning hot as well. So many times in the past she had wanted to do that. She trembled slightly as she formed the seals again and guided the growth of her tree. She heard Naruto's hands striking the ground as well with renewed enthusiasm and determination.

A little while later, Hinata stopped.

"We should probably start with new trees because the ones we've grown are too green for autumn," Hinata said thoughtfully.

"Mmh, you're right," Naruto agreed, then smacked his forehead and said, "Ah, I forgot, I have to meet with Jiraiya again today by the river."

"Oh, okay. Um, my parents said to invite you for dinner tonight."

"Great! I'll be there."

Naruto paused a bit, looked at her with an awkward smile, and then hugged her.

"I'll…I'll see you later then."

He let her go.

"Okay," she smiled and then watched him as he ran off.

Hinata heaved a sigh. She didn't know what she was in for and was afraid to feel happy, but she smiled nonetheless. Her hands came up and covered up her warm cheeks as she started to make her way out of their secret training spot.

* * *

Soon she was walking into down town under the late afternoon sky, heading for her next appointment of the day. She smiled a crooked smile, scared and happy and confused at the same time, not sure what to make of everything. Her hands were habitually clasped in front of her.

"Hinata?"

She turned at the sound of her name.

"Oh, ano, hi Sakura."

"Hi. I was wondering if you had a moment to have some tea with me. My treat."

"Um…" she looked up at the position of the sun, "yeah, I think so."

Hinata mustered the best smile she could as she tried to control the trembling in her body.

They sat down at the table outside of the tea shop on the corner of the street. Their drinks were served. Hinata watched as the condensed water slid down the side of her glass cup of iced green tea. Sakura sipped her red ice tea.

"Sorry, to bother you like this Hinata, I know you've been really busy with a lot of training."

"No, no, it's okay."

"I just happened to see you right now and wanted to ask you something that I've been curious about for a long time."

Hinata looked at her, silently wondering what in the world Sakura, the smartest kid from their graduating academy class, would want to know from her?

"Well, you've always been so quiet, but you know, it's always been really obvious, at least to us girls, that you really like Naruto."

Hinata bit her lower lip and looked back down at her drink. She took a sip of the cool green liquid from the straw that pointed towards her.

"Well, you see, it seemed like all the other girls in class were all into Sasuke, him being top of the class and so good looking and all."

Sakura continued with an embarrassed laugh, "We always thought Naruto was such a loser. Dead last Uzumaki, you know."

Hinata nodded her head slightly, still biting her lower lip as if to keep from saying something she shouldn't.

"I was just wondering why you liked Naruto and not Sasuke?"

Sakura gave her a furtive look before going back to sipping her own drink then looking casually out at the people passing by on the street.

Hinata looked up directly at Sakura, surprised at this most unexpected question. She took another sip of her drink, watching the ice cubes in her cup shift and clink against each other in the green liquid.

She took a deep breath. _Might as well, _she thought. She was on a roll today.

"I guess I ended up admiring Naruto so much because even when he failed, he kept trying so hard. Even when everyone made fun of him, he stood up to it. So I had thought to myself, that's what I want to be like. Someone who can face failure."

"So des…" Sakura said thoughtfully.

"I admired Sasuke, too. He was always so smart and did so well in school. He worked really hard, too. But I guess now that I know more about Sasuke and what happened to him, I sort of hate him."

"Why?" Sakura wondered how shy and quiet Hinata could ever end up hating someone like Sasuke, someone she had never had anything to do with.

"Because he abandoned Konoha, his friends, neighbors, and teachers, when we needed him the most. Because of him, Shikamaru-kun, Chouji-kun, Kiba-kun, Neji-oniisan, and even Naruto almost lost their lives trying to bring him back."

Sakura's eyes grew wide, and then a look of pain fell over her face.

"Sasuke wants revenge on the person who took everything away from him," Sakura said, with a hint defensiveness in her voice.

"I…I don't know what happened to Naruto's parents, but if Naruto took the same path as Sasuke, taking revenge on those who made him suffer, he'd have to destroy Konoha. Instead, Naruto wants to be Hokage, the ultimate protector of this village."

Sakura cringed at these words.

"I never understood and still don't understand why all the adults treated Naruto so badly. I mean, shouldn't a child of our village receive extra help from everyone if they have no parents?"

The two girls sat in silence for a moment, each taking a sip or two of their drink.

"Sorry, Sakura, I have a meeting with my father at main office."

"Oh, yeah, sorry to have bothered you. Thanks for talking to me."

The two finished up their drinks.

"Thank you for the tea, Sakura."

Sakura shook her head.

"It's nothing, it's nothing."

They both stood up to go.

"You know, Hinata-san, I always thought I was the shrewdest one in class, but you're smarter than I'll ever be."

Before Hinata could open her mouth in protest and list all the times Sakura scored the highest in class, Sakura threw her a friendly yet sad smile and said,

"No wonder Naruto likes you so much! Jamatane."

Sakura gave her a wink, waved and walked away, leaving Hinata standing with her mouth slightly agape.

* * *

Hinata opened the front door of her house and let Naruto out of the Hyuuga family compound after dinner. She stepped outside with him. He turned to look at her a little puzzled; she usually just opened the door for him and stayed inside. He watched as she left the door ajar behind her.

After all that had happened and everything she had heard today, Hinata wanted to finish something tonight that she realized she might not be able to do on another day. She was really on a roll.

Naruto smiled at her, glad to have a moment with her alone before he had to say goodbye. The two of them were bathed in full moon light, and they glowed ethereally against the night sky. He reached out and shyly but tenderly took her hand in his with an awkward smile on his face.

"Naruto, thank you for helping me feel better yesterday."

Before he could say it was nothing, Hinata was up on her tippy-toes and her lips met his. Naruto's eyes grew wide and had barely processed what just happened when Hinata again, for the second time that day, wrapped her arms around his neck. She held on. His eyes softened, and he put his arms around her as well, burying half of his face in her hair while she buried her face in his neck. After a moment, they released each other, and stood facing each other, both of their hands sliding down the others' arms into each others hands.

"I'll see you tomorrow, Hinata-chan," Naruto said with the happiest smile he's ever had in his life spread across his face. He could barely contain his joy.

"Okay, see you tomorrow, Naruto-chan," Hinata said cheerfully with a smile, her timid, sweet voice saying his name like a beautiful melody floating past his ears.

Naruto bounded off into the night. Instead of walking like he usually did, he flew from roof top to roof top, his heart soaring like it never had before. He never knew he could feel this way.

Hinata looked on, watching him take flight into the night, smiled with a mixture of fear, sadness, and happiness swirling around inside of her, and went back into the walls of the compound.

_

* * *

The fighting action is on its way, I promise : D You'll never guess who it's going to be between :P Okay, um, maybe you will._


	7. Chapter 7

_Fight scene! Hope you like it! Thanks for reading and for all the encouragement! _

_RE: Naruto-chan…let's just say Hinata's pushing the limits of socially constructed linguistic gender norms…yup, Hinata's progressive like that : P ; )_

_RE: Breaks in the story…apparently these line things are the only ones that will show up. All of mine disappear after the upload to fanficnet. Sorry for the confusion!_

_Japanese Terms: mamoru (to protect) ureshii des (I was so happy) _

* * *

Awakenings 7 

Naruto sat waiting at the spot up in the trees for Hinata to arrive. He had looked forward to seeing her all morning during his training with Jiraiya to refine his Rasengan and his lunch with Iruka sensei at the ramen place. He sat lounging on the branch, lost in his thoughts.

Being in this same spot reminded him of the day before yesterday, when he had found her here upset. He frowned a bit; he still didn't know why she had been so upset. Then he thought of his unexpected show of affection and the domino effect of events that followed soon after. His mind wandered back to what had sort of triggered it all—his talk with Sakura.

* * *

"I was just wondering why you liked me so much…" she asked. 

The question caught him off guard. He hadn't thought about those feelings for a long time now, but he had spent enough time pondering about them before so he did have an answer.

"You were really shy when you were little, and then you changed, became more confident and successful. I thought that was cool," he said, not looking at her.

"I also thought you were really funny, like you laughed at the same jokes that I did, only sometimes you didn't want to show it," he turned to give her an impish smile.

Sakura chuckled admittedly, and then looked ponderingly ahead at the path that lay before them.

"Naruto, I'm sorry I was so mean to you. You're really a good person."

Naruto shook his head, "Nah, that was just kids stuff. You, Sasuke, and Kakashi sensei are family to me. Like I said, I promise to bring Sasuke back so that we can all be a team again."

Sakura's gaze lowered to the ground, a hint of sadness swept over her eyes. She had always taken Naruto for granted. When he promised to bring Sasuke back, she realized painfully that that's the way their relationship had always been. Naruto giving to her everything he had, protecting her, saving her. The more she had grown to understand that, the more she promised herself that she wouldn't be that kind of person, someone who took others for granted.

They had walked in an awkward silence for a while when she caught him off guard with another unexpected question.

"So you really like Hinata don't you?"

Naruto's face turned bright red.

"Everyone's talking about it."

Sakura skipped ahead of him and stuck her tongue out at him. He gave her an embarrassed grin through his blushing face, and was enough of an answer to her question. _Everyone is _talking _about it?_ Has he been that obvious?

* * *

The talk had forced him to admit outwardly that he really had feelings for Hinata. Then finding Hinata upset right after that and having her withdraw from him was so painful. He had felt impelled to reach out and hold on to her to keep her from going away. 

When she had slipped her hand into his in midair yesterday, it was enough to tell him that she wanted to be more than just friends. _Ureshii des…_

He glanced over at the sun and sat up a bit startled. He had been too lost in his thoughts and had not realized the time. Hinata was very late. This was very unlike her. He looked around at the view from his perch, straining to see far in the distance with no luck of finding her ink-blue hair glistening in the afternoon sun. He hopped down from out of the tree and headed for the Konoha streets planning to make his way to the Hyuuga mansion. He had barely set foot on concrete when he heard the sound of running feet hitting the pavement.

Ino and Sakura suddenly turned the corner and when they saw him, they gasped and headed towards him. He was about to give them a hasty greeting and be on his way when he saw the looks of distress on their faces.

"Naruto! I'm so sorry! I just heard the news!"

"What news? What happened?"

Sakura and Ino threw each other a horrified look.

"You…you don't know?" Ino asked in disbelief.

"Know what?" Naruto asked, not knowing what to expect.

Sakura gave him one of the most pained expressions he'd ever seen on her face.

"Hinata's been kidnapped."

Naruto felt the ground fall out from underneath him as the words hit him.  
"Who?"

"People are saying that it was a member of the Hyuuga branch family. One of Hinata's father's most trusted guards," Sakura said frantically.

"When?" Naruto could barely get past uttering one word at a time.

"It happened sometime last night," Ino added, equally frantic.

"Tsunade sent out a team of anbu to rescue her. She sent Ino and me to…"

Before Sakura had finished her sentence, Naruto was all ready off, flying from roof top to roof top, a look of panic in his eyes that had never been there before.

* * *

The Fifth Hokage sat quietly at her desk flipping through the pages of a medical manual. The day's events weighed heavily upon her, but she had an important operation to prepare for. She was just turning another page when her door flew open and through it burst a blur of orange and yellow. 

"WHERE'S HINATA?" Naruto yelled.

Tsunade closed her book calmly. She had been expecting this. She shook her head.

"I've all ready sent an Anbu team to rescue her."

"WHERE? DO YOU KNOW WHERE?" he yelled again, making no effort to hide the hysteria trembling in his voice.

"It's being taken cared of Naruto. You must trust me on this. We have a top Anbu team after her. She'll be back before tomorrow. Kakashi sensei is heading the operation. You know yourself that his mission success rate is practically flawless."

"WHY DIDN'T YOU SEND ME? JUST TELL ME WHERE!"

"Naruto, if you go now, you may interfere with the current operation and put her in more danger," Tsunade said sternly.

Naruto tried to control his breathing and slow down his racing pulse.

"Why her?" he said, more to himself than to the 5th Hokage.

"It's not the first time she's been kidnapped. There have been many attempts to take her and her sister ever since they were born. It's their bloodline limit. A ninja's body holds the secrets of the ninja's village. Rest assured, Naruto, trust me; she will be safe and back by tomorrow."

Naruto's hands were clenched tightly in fists. He turned around and went out the door slamming it behind him. Tsunade sighed.

Nartuo stood outside the Hokage's office facing away from the door, staring at the spot where the wall in front of him joined the floor. He tried to control his rage and anxiety. Tsunade was right, if he barged in now, he might jeopardize the rescue effort. Now that he was just standing there, though, and not running or yelling, he found it harder and harder to hold back a tide of thoughts that he had, out of panic, blocked off. His mind began to conjure up all sorts of horrors of what could be happening to Hinata right now at that very moment. His fists unclenched only for his hands to come up to his head, his fingers digging into his skin, as if he were trying to hold his skull together and keep it from bursting. The dam that held back a flood of emotions was breaking and Naruto was starting to drown.

He hunched forward and slowly squatted down, hands still holding his head. At that moment, Shikamaru and Chouji happened to walk around the corner for their meeting with the Hokage. They stopped in their tracks when they saw Naruto squatting and holding his head as if he had a massive migraine headache.

"Oi, Naruto, are you okay?" Shikamaru asked as Chouji tossed another chip from his snack bag into his mouth and crunched down on it with great satisfaction.

They watched as a blue, misty flame engulfed Naruto's body and then suddenly turn an angry red. His fingers elongated along with his nails forming what looked like the sharp claws of a wild animal. His teeth began to sharpen and grow as well and the pupils of his eyes stretched vertically and became slits in a pool of blood red iris.

Shikamaru and Chouji gasped as they watched the transformation.

"Na...Naruto?"

Naruto looked up at them and let out a low, deep growl, his body surrounded by the red flame that flickered menacingly at the air around him.

Deep inside Naruto, where the nine-tail fox demon Kyubi lay trapped and sealed in the body of this young boy, the consciousness of the evil and destructive entity mentally formed a word that had never been a part of its vocabulary before…_mamoru_.

Kyubi snorted at the two Konoha ninjas that stood gaping at him and turned around to face the door of the Hokage office. The red flames around Naruto's body formed the image of whipping and slashing tails behind him, one, two, four, seven, nine tails. Kyubi got down on all fours, then pounced, breaking down the door and staring past the startled 5th Hokage who had been wondering what all the ruckus outside her door was about.

Tsunade stood up in shock at the site of the nine-tale demon possessed Naruto.

"NARUTO!" she yelled with as much authority as she could project. Naruto gave no indication that he had heard the Hokage's call, then pounced towards her but instead of attacking her, jumped clear over her head and burst through the office window behind her. At that moment, Shikamaru and Chouji had just run into the office about to offer their assistance to the Hokage only to watch Naruto fly out the window sending shards of glass flying out into the late afternoon sky. The three of them ran to the widow and watched the streak of red fly across the roof tops of Konoha, heading straight towards the Hyuuga mansion.

* * *

Hiashi Hyuuga stood at the top of the hill where his most loyal guard from the branch family usually perched, standing watch over the private training grounds of the Hyuuga main family. He looked out in the distant horizon contemplatively, his lips tight with worry. The sun was just about to begin its descent, the light it gave off beginning to take yellow and orange hues. 

His eyes suddenly grew wide as he sensed something approaching, something with an ominous aura that he recognized all too well.

_Kyubi…_

He turned around to see the streak of red that was heading towards the serene visage of his home. He began his descent down the hill, his movements simultaneously smooth and powerful. Naruto reached the mansion before him, moving at a speed that had not been witnessed in Konoha since the days when the 4th Hokage protected the village.

Kyubi sped from spot to spot, sniffing the ground, the air, the walls.

_Mamoru…_this new concept echoed through its will.

Through his byakuugan, Hiashi could see the blue chakra intermingled with the red chakra, both chakras evenly balancing each other out. The hated Kyubi and their own Naruto fused almost as one—a heavy burden indeed. Everyone knew Naruto would be upset at the news, but no one had expected this. Hiashi barely had time to take in the image of Naruto in his possessed state, hands like claws with nine, red, transparent tales whipping menacingly behind and above him. And those eyes, the same eyes Hiashi had seen a decade and a half ago, eyes that held an ominous image of a destroyed Konoha.

_He must be contained._

Hiashi inched closer, struggling to keep up with Naruto's speed. Kyubi appeared to have found the scent it was looking for and was about to take off. Hiashi jumped in front of him, his hands poised and began to strike at Naruto's critical chakra flow points. Kyubi reeled and growled irritably at him, its back bristling like an angry cat. He aimed to cut off the Kyubi's chakra flow and disable much of Naruto's own chakra as well. Strike after strike, Hiashi aimed with impossible precision only a Hyuuga could accomplish, but each strike failed to hit its mark. Naruto was forming solid forms of chakra at every spot on his body that was under attack blocking every attempt on his chakra flow system. Both the Kyubi and Naruto's chakra remained at full force, unaffected by the attacks. This defensive move was part of the process of training for the Hidden Kunai of Konoha. Even in this state, Naruto was able to execute his newly acquired technique.

Hiashi's forehead furrowed with worry; he had hoped to end this quickly and contain Naruto with as little damage as possible. The task was turning out to be more complicated than he had anticipated; he had not exerted himself this much in a long time. Hiashi himself had created this obstacle that was preventing a quick, clean containment of the Kyubi.

In a last attempt, he executed a high level Divination Field, a move that attacked all the chakra points at a god-like speed that made all the attacks practically simultaneous, hoping that the combined speed and sequence of this multidirectional attack would break through Kyubi's defenses .

His robes flew melodiously and majestically around him, flapping and flowing with every movement, as if he were performing a powerful and elegant martial dance commemorating a legendary warrior. The ninjas of Konoha would have wanted to witness this rare sight of a Hyuuga successor battling at full force.

The attack failed. A combination of the chakra defensive technique and Naruto's speed was enough to fend it off. Again, the Kyubi growled irritably at Hiashi, impatient to get on with its task.

Hiashi had no choice. If the Kyubi is out of control, if Naruto is out of control, it could mean the destruction of Konoha. He stopped in his tracks, straightening up in the same stately position that he had taken on the first day he began training Naruto. His breathing evened out, and the nerves and veins around his eyes bulged with the hyper-activation of the byakuugan.

"Hidden Kunai of Konoha!"

His deep voice echoed operatically over the hills. Through his extra sensory perception ability, Hiashi watched as a storm of chakra knives flew through the air at Kyubi. The attacks on Naruto's duel chakra flow were ineffective, and he had had to resort to this assault on Kyubi's physical body. Even in taking this extreme measure, Hiashi had aimed for non-vital yet disabling points on Naruto's body. He knew he was gambling with Konoha's future by not aiming to mortally wound the Kyubi, but he could not ignore that Naruto was a ninja of Konoha as well, one of their own…a future hokage…

Kyubi turned its claws menacingly upwards, and with a roar, its chest expanded and a perfect, spherical, red chakra shield formed around Naruto's body. The Hidden Kunai was completely deflected for the first time in history.

Naruto's hands came together and began to form a series of seals. Hiashi's eyes grew wide. He recognized the sequence, a technique that few knew about let alone could execute, a technique of great legend that was purported to be responsible for the formation of Konoha.

"Impossible…"

The word slipped out of his mouth in an incredulous whisper. The next thing he knew, Naruto's palms had hit the floor and he felt restraints wrapping around his ankles, his wrists, his waist, and even around his neck. He released chakra from all parts of his body to cut through the restraints, but it barely scratched the plants that had wrapped their limbs around him, plants with limbs that flowed with blue and red chakra. He was raised from the ground, and as he soared unwilling up into the sky, he was afforded a full view of what was once the beautiful garden in his backyard. It was now full of massively over grown plants, some of which had a hold on him. His whole body was soon covered by plant tissue save for his face, and he was rendered immobile.

Hiashi watched helplessly as Naruto bounded away over the hills towards a blood red horizon.


	8. Chapter 8

_Okay, so all that mush before actually built up to something else besides just Naruhina fluff, yes? Thanks everyone for your kind words and for continuing to read! I guess I'm putting my martial arts training and movie watching to good use in describing action scenes : ) Not to mention the makers and animators of Naruto are just darn awesome with action sequences! There are definitely elements here that match my own original novel, so this has been good practice for that. Hope you enjoy this new installment! All hail the Narutoverse kami-sama (gods) who own Naruto!_

* * *

Awakenings 8

Hidden behind the leaves of a forest bathed in the darkness of night was a white mask with red streaks across it. The mask slightly resembled a cat's face, though was rounder and smoother than the features of most felines. Bursting out from on top of and behind this misleadingly benign and composed wooden countenance were streaks of gray hair flying this way and that. Below it was a sleek body that was covered by a gray vest piece and black body attire—the standard uniform for a Konoha Anbu.

The mask observed carefully the target before him: a hidden mansion in the depths of the forest surrounded on all sides by overgrown trees. Weaving onto the compound was a road, apparently well worn for a place that was so hidden. On the roof perched 10 ninjas, 5 of which were hidden but not well enough to escape detection. On the grounds were about 20 ninjas. The ground offered more places to hide and thus he could not be sure he and his team had found all of them. They bore the symbol of the Village of the Hidden Mist.

Behind him dotting the branches of the forest were the other members of his team, all wearing the same attire and similar masks, hidden expertly within the dark shadows. They watched silently as a large caravan of men wearing simple yet clean servants clothes came trotting in carrying huge poles on their weary shoulders. Attached to these poles in between the rows of men was a large, rectangular box. As the servants wound up the road to the front steps and slowly lowered their load onto the ground, the front doors of the mansion opened and out came some men wearing nondescript brown and black robes, all with swords strapped to their belts. Out from behind a blue curtain that covered the contents of the box came a large man.

"Boss Tanaka."

The men all said this in scattered unison respectfully. Boss Tanaka walked into the building, the men with swords filed in after him, and the door closed. His caravan attendants squatted, waiting for his return.

Another Anbu mask appeared out of the darkness and spoke in lowered tones behind streaking gray hair of the commanding Anbu.

"I've located our target. Hinata is being held in the basement under the watchful eye of Hyuuga Ryozo."

Behind the Anbu mask he hadn't worn in a long time, Hatake Kakashi's eyes narrowed. The Hyuuga branch family member, the heavy guard around the building—they were dealing with someone of great influence and resource.

He raised his right hand up into the air and held up three fingers, then made a fist and lowered it slightly, indicating that three of the team members were to stay behind, hidden in the trees as back up and continued surveillance. He opened his hand, then flipped it so that the palm faced backwards, then faced it forward again and motioned for everyone else to move forward.

The time to set their plan into action had come. Anbu members spread out, surrounding the compound in a pattern like a spiderweb with the mansion at the center of the trap. They inched closer, readying their weapons.

At that moment, rumbling roar rolled unexpectedly through the forest. A host of sleeping birds took off from the trees around them. All of the guards around the compound were alert. The Konoha Anbu shrank back, the disturbance automatically putting their attack on hold in order to reassess the situation.

A blur of red, yellow, and orange burst out of the tree foliage and landed on the ground 5 yards in front of the caravan sending a cloud of dirt rising wraithlike into the still night air. The caravan attendants fell and stumbled over each other as they yelped with fear and scrambled away from their posts.

Rising slowly up on his legs, Kyubi stood looking up at the building in front of him. Naruto sniffed the air. A corner of his mouth twisted up in a wicked smile, and Naruto screamed in triumph, a deep roar accompanying his human voice, a roar that no human lung could emit. The nine otherworldly, transparent red tails whipped excitedly behind him, the black pupil slits cutting through red iris glimmered with anticipation.

Kakashi's eyes grew wide in recognition.

_Naruto…Kyubi…_

A grip of Hidden Mist ninjas surrounded Naruto. They brandished kunai and began inching towards him. Kyubi grunted with irritation again. Simultaneously they jumped up and flung a thick shower of kunai upon him, but the kunai embedded harmlessly into the soft earth. Naruto was up in the air with them taken out one of them at a time, criss-crossing the air space between them, using each defeated ninja as a jumping platform to the next. The Mist Ninjas fell unconscious to the ground, Naruto landing back on his original spot, feet placed easily in a open space between the kunai protruding from the ground. Another wave of ninjas came at him. With a blinding spin, Kyubi turned into what looked like a red vortex. Flying out of this vortex were kunai and they found their marks, cutting critical tendon points on all the incoming ninja who fell, blood flowing out of their wounds, many of their limbs immobile from the attack.

Naruto ran forward, over bodies of unconscious and immobile foes, crashed through the contraption that had brought Boss Tanaka, and destroying the front doors to the mansion as he passed through. Kakashi was hot on his tail, barely able to keep up. At the moment of impact with the door, however, Kakashi saw a window of opportunity and leapt forward with his right hand outreached. His fingers wrapped around Naruto's ankle, partially covering over the blue fabric of his shoe. Kyubi stumbled forward and fell to the ground, turned and glared at Kakashi with a growl.

"NARUTO! CALM DOWN!"

Behind him, the Konoha Anbu were securing every opening and possible escape route from the mansion.

The group of men that had greeted Boss Tanaka showed up, their swords out of their sheaths and flashing in the indoor lighting as they walked towards the now demolished front door in the high-ceiling entrance hallway.

Naruto looked up at them distracted, and Kakashi, seeing another opportunity, pulled the foot he had in his hand under him and grabbed Kyubi's leg with his other hand. He quickly had a firm grasp on Naruto's right arm and was pushing his chest down against the floor with his other hand.

"Calm down," he said firmly again.

Kyubi threw him an angry look and its legs twisted up and caught Kakashi's body in the scissor grip. With his free hand, he knocked Kakashi hard in the face with a full fist while at the same time twisting his body and legs in a torque motion. The combined force of the blow to his face and the unidirectional circular flipping of his body sent Kakashi's head smashing into the ground. Dazed for a second, he quickly shook it off only to find Naruto running towards what looked like a garden of blades waving furiously at him in a menacing wind.

Kyubi jumped up on to the wall and ran up to the ceiling, then took off diagonally for the other wall on the far side, passing over the point that was dead center in the crowd of henchmen. A shower of shuriken flew down and the slicing of flesh and flying of blood droplets filled the hallway. All of the men fell to the floor, each grabbing a different deep cut wound on their bodies, some of them with more than one. Naruto bounced off of the other wall and landed running on the floor behind the crowd. Kakashi stood up and ran after him, jumping lightly over the injured henchmen who lay moaning all over the floor.

Underground, Boss Tanaka, two henchmen, and Hyuuga Ryozo carrying a bound up Hinata over his shoulder were running down a secret underground escape passage.

"You stupid Konoha dog! They must have followed you here! If we don't get out of this, you get none of what I promised you. Do you hear me!"

Boss Tanaka breathed heavily as he ran. Ryozo ran on silently. Then his calm countenance widened in horror. He felt something coming, something familiar in a terrifying way. Suddenly that something pounce on his back, pushing him forward. In the fall, he twisted to change the path of Hinata's fall in a way that reduced the injury she would suffer from the fall, his hand catching on a rope on her hand and pulling it free.

"Be careful with the cargo, you moron!" Boss Tanaka yelled as he heard the thud behind him, but when he turned around, his arrogance evaporated and he, along with his henchmen, yelped in fear at the image before his eyes. On top of and unconscious Ryozo's back was a young boy with yellow, spiky hair wearing a bright orange jacket. His body was engulfed in a red flame whipping and flickering angrily, his eyes were blood red and cat-like burning with intense loathing and rage, and one of his wild, sharp clawed hands was raised and poised for a death strike.

"NARUTO! NOOOOO!" Hinata's scream echoed through the tunnel just as Kakashi appeared out of the darkness. She had used her free hand to pull off the piece of large, heavy duty tape that had muted her earlier. Kakashi was about to jump, grab Naruto's arm, and pull him back when he realized that it had paused in the air, heeding the call of the young girl. It lowered.

In yelps of fear, the henchmen and Boss Tanaka started to run off. Naruto growled. A blur of yellow hair and red chakra shot passed them and they found that their escape route was blocked off. They started running back the opposite way, straight towards Kakashi. Apparently an enemy ninja was less frightening to them than a demon possessed youth. Kakashi, let them run past him without lifting a finger. The rest of his team would take care of them. Besides, he had more pressing matters to attend to.

"Na…Naruto?" Hinata's voice came out, filled with shock, concern, and fear. Her mind tried to digest the image she saw in front of her. Before she had time to fully grasp the situation, Kyubi was up in the air flying towards her. She looked up at him like a deer in headlights, her wide, pale eyes staring into the blood red eyes surrounded by fiery red chakra flames. Naruto's claws were pointing towards her.

Kakashi rushed forward her, not knowing what Naruto would do in his current state. Before he could throw his body in between Hinata and Naruto, he saw Kyubi brandishing a kunai knife in his hand, and Kakashi's eyes grew wide with concern.

Cut pieces of rope slipped to the ground. Naruto sat on the ground on his haunches, much the way a golden retriever would, black kunai firmly held in his mouth by the handle. Hinata sat up, a bit frozen in place, her eyes transfixed on the wild looking possessed Naruto sitting vigilantly on the ground next to her.

Running feet came, and Kyubi growled a warning. An Anbu member ran up to Kakashi, Naruto's growl causing him to hesitate a bit before he looked at Kakashi and spoke.

"We have secured the main target, sir."

"Good, send word and prepare to return to the village. I'll be out there soon."

The Anbu nodded, threw a furtive look at Naruto and took off back down the tunnel from where he came.

"Naruto, Hinata is safe now. Calm down."

Kyubi looked up at Hinata who had not taken her eyes off of him. The red flames around him began to subside, his pupils smoothed out from their sharp and angular shape, his eyes fading from red to blue, and his teeth and claws shrinking back to their original size. The kunai fell out of his mouth.

"Hinata…"

As her name came weakly out of his mouth, Naruto's eyelids drooped and closed, and he began to lean and fall to the floor away from Hinata as if he had been injected with a high dose of tranquilizer. She instinctively caught him before he hit the ground, holding his limp body in her arms, cradling his head over her shoulder.


	9. Chapter 9

_I'm so glad so many are enjoying this story with me! I'm a big geek that likes to reread my own writing : P I'm just glad all this effort isn't only for my own amusement and that others are having fun, too. I've been updating a lot because of everyone's encouragement and because I'm indulging in the story—it feels like I'm hooked on an anime writing this thing : D Also, I know how frustrating it is to invest in a Fanfic only to wait forever for an update or, worse, for the author to abandon the story. Fear not: D I shall finish! Yakusoku (promise)!_

_FYI: Japanese terms at the end of this doc because they're kind of spoilers if you read them first._

* * *

Awakenings 9

_Mamoru…ka?_

Kyubi turned over this new concept in its consciousness and the actions of the previous night.

_Why?_

"Because I want to."

_Why?_

"Because I have people I care about."

_Why?_

"Because I want to."

_Why?_

"Because I want to."

Naruto stood in front of the large, rusted gates in ankle high water that rippled around his feet. On the gates of long, thick metallic bars was a piece of paper with markings on it, a seal that held the cage closed and kept the Kyubi locked inside the recesses of his body and mind.

_Why not destroy?_

"I don't want to."

As always, Kyubi tested his will, but most of all it questioned with curiosity, mulling over his answers with a furrowed brow. The life of a human child was more complicated than it could have ever imagined. Kyubi had watched this boy grow from a young sapling to the youth he was today. Throughout his life, he had tempted this boy with power, offered to destroy those who opposed him and torture those who caused him pain. All Naruto had to do was say yes, but he never did. When children threw rocks and dirt at him, he had refused. When he was abandoned by the adults of his village, cast aside with cold looks and cruel whispers, he had refused. When he cried alone and forlorn, he had refused. Only the Kyubi himself truly knew that Naruto's will has served as another seal holding Kyubi back from laying Konoha to waste.

Naruto had made use of Kyubi's chakra to protect before, to win battles, even in the fight to bring his best friend back to Konoha. The demon had always sat by, watching the actions of this human boy from a distance. This was the first time, however, that the boy's will had impacted Kyubi's own consciousness. The incredible intensity of the emotions Naruto drowned in as he thought of the horrors Hinata could be experiencing also reached the Kyubi demon inside him, and for the first time in its destructive existence, it glimpsed from a first hand experience what it was like to want so desperately to protect someone other than itself. This passionate will to protect, the incomprehensible look he had seen in the eyes of that detested 4th Hokage who had sealed him into the weak, frail body of a human child, was confusing, alien, and deep—all of which made it all the more intriguing for Kyubi, like a new, groundbreaking musical sound falling upon ears that had listened wearily to the drone of the same melody for thousands of years.

_Why? _Kyubi asked again, hoping to get a different answer.

"Because I want to," came Naruto's unwavering answer again.

The Kyubi turned over in its prison. This evil entity pondered over the boy's words again, and it pondered over why, last night, Kyubi himself had also wanted to protect and had chosen it.

Naruto left the dark dungeon where the Kyubi lay, taking step after step in the rippling water and walked towards a bright place.

* * *

The sunlight streamed into the hospital room through the blinds casting cheerful shapes on the walls and bed. The lights were off, and there was a cool shadow that flowed throughout the room. Naruto opened his eyes. His head was slightly propped up by a very fluffy pillow. As his vision focused, he saw to his left on the bed was a pile of dark ink blue hair wrapped in two arms covered by tan-gray, thick jacket sleeves.

His left hand reached out and grabbed the sleeve closest to him. Hinata's head popped up in surprise, but before she could do or say anything, she was pulled into his arms. He held her like a child embracing a most cherished stuffed animal, burying his face in her neck. Hinata's eyes softened, and she reach her arms around him to return the embrace. She felt warm tears dripping onto her neck and roll down over her skin. Her own eyes watered. They were silent for moment.

"Hinata…" Naruto's trembling and muffled voice came out. He wanted to hear her name.

"Gomen, Naruto. I'm sorry I worried you so."

He loosened his hold on her, but kept his hands on her arms, gently but firmly gripping on to the fabric, as if she would slip away if he didn't hold on. Hinata took the extra pillows on the dresser and put them behind him so that he could sit, all the while Naruto kept his hold on her. She sat on the side of the bed and faced him, sliding his hands from their grip on her sleeves so that she held both of his hands in hers. Her right hand reached up and cupped his cheek, wiping away the wetness under his eyes with her thumb. The expression on his face was one of concern.

"Are you really all right?"

"Yes."

"Did they hurt you?"

"No, I only took a formula which put me to sleep, but otherwise, I was just tied up. Hyuuga Ryozo from the branch family watched over me as I slept to make sure nothing happened to me while I was unconscious."

Naruto heaved a sigh of relief and leaned back onto his pillows as if a huge weight had been lifted. Then, he realized that something she said was puzzling.

"Hyuuga Ryozo? From the branch family? He was the one who kidnapped you?"

"Yes and no. The kidnapping was staged to find out who was orchestrating a series of attempts that have been made to capture my sister and me for quite some time. Hyuuga Ryozo had been approached by some underlings of Boss Tanaka that had thought they could exploit the sour politics of the Hyuuga family to capture one of us for study. Ryozo-san accepted the proposal, but only because he saw it as an opportunity to find out who was behind all of the attempts. He decided to play along and relayed his plan to my father and the Hokage. It was decided that a kidnapping would be staged with me as the victim. As Ryozo-san had predicted, they posted him to watch over me because they did not know how to handle the byakuugan. He was able to watch over me throughout the entire mission."

Naruto listened intently, soaking it all in. Hinata gave him an apologetic and worried look.

"Gomen, Naruto! I really wanted to tell you about all of this, I didn't want to worry you, but the 5th Hokage ordered me to tell no one."

Naruto shook his head.

"No, I'm just glad you're okay. I was just so worried…"

He looked away, the memory of what happened running through his mind. He had been conscious during the whole task, aware of jumping out of the Hokage's office window, knowingly battling Hiashi and all the other people that were preventing him from reaching Hinata and making sure she was safe.

* * *

Thinking back to what the Hokage had said to him before he went on the rampage, he remembered the warning she had given him, that if he ran in on the operation, he could jeopardize the whole rescue. He had understood that and had attempted to restrain himself and his anxiety for Hinata's sake, but…the thoughts of her being hurt and the flood of emotions that came with that had driven that logic out of his mind. All he thought of at that moment was absolutely ensuring that Hinata was safe, absolutely knowing that she was, and all of his actions after that was unidirectional in following that instinct.

Moreover, he realized that he did not act alone. The Kyubi somehow had been infused with the same want. Before, he had only borrowed the Kyubi's chakra, but this time he had felt it—the Kyubi had wanted to protect Hinata as well. He had felt the Kyubi experiencing his feelings, bewildered by them but affected nonetheless, as if the evil demon had been injected with a portion of his soul and will. During the battles, when he fought, the Kyubi had wanted to kill the obstacles, kill Hiashi, the Hidden Mist ninjas, and the henchmen. Naruto's own will had held him back, keeping their joint actions limited to maiming and disabling obstacles instead of completely obliterating them.

There was one moment, though, when Naruto was leaning forward over the edge of a cliff and about to lift all restraints off of the Kyubi's natural instinct to kill and destroy. When he stood on the back of the Hyuuga branch member, the one he believed was responsible for Hinata's kidnapping, he felt hate and rage he had never felt before. Naruto himself wanted so badly to rip the body of Hyuuga Ryozo to shreds and for once came close to letting loose the Kyubi's bloodlust—and his own—upon the detested kidnapper who had taken his precious Hinata away and put her in danger.

Hinata's voice had pierced through his consciousness in that dark moment, pleading for him to stop.

_WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR? MAKE HIM SUFFER! KILL HIM! RIP HIM TO SHREDS FOR WHAT HE'S DONE!_

The Kyubi's demanding screams had rung throughout his head when Naruto stayed his hand, but Naruto had lowered his hand anyway, controlling his intense rage and hate, his intense desire to inflict pain, suffering, and destruction on the life he held in his hands.

* * *

His right hand let go of Hinata's hand, and he looked at it as he held it palm facing up towards his face, fingers slightly curved like a claw.

"Gomen, Hinata. I'm the one who should be apologizing to you. I never told you…what I had inside me…what I am…"

"The 5th explained to me a bit about what happened to you…"

Naruto put his right hand on his stomach and looked down at it.

"There's a demon sealed inside me called the Kyubi. It was trying to destroy Konoha and the 4th Hokage sealed him inside me."

He looked up into Hinata's pale eyes.

"I'm sorry I scared you. Sometimes, I use the demon's chakra. I guess I went a little overboard this time."

He looked away from her. Suddenly it hit him, what if she was scared of him, scared of the Kyubi demon inside him, scared that he himself was a demon. The hand that still held hers loosened, not wanting to hold her if she didn't want to be touched by him. He felt dirty, unfit to show her affection. What had he been thinking getting so close to her without letting her know the horrible creature that lay dormant in his body? It wasn't fair to have kept this from her, and he knew should have thought of this earlier on.

Hinata read his mind. Like her cousin Neji and all others who had inherited the powers of the byakuugan, she had a heightened ability to read people's body language to infer what was going on in their heads. She had observed Naruto for so long, she might not have needed the byakuugan to figure out what he was thinking about at that moment.

She leaned in and pecked him lightly on the lips. Naruto froze, eyes widened, as Hinata wrapped her arms around his neck again.

"Daijobu," she said cheerfully in her sweet, quiet voice into his ear, and the next words she uttered were last thing he had expected to hear.

"Aishiteru."

He felt her cheeks burn whiled pressed next to his cheek as those words left her lips. His earlier doubt-filled thoughts and his desire to pull away from her vanished as he felt a shower of warmth and joy wash over him. He smiled softly and wound his arms around her as well.

"Aishiteru."

He returned the words, and a deep promise was made between them, the promise that comes with saying such important words to another.

Kyubi turned again inside his cage. He had never heard these words before, and as with the will to protect, he felt the emotions that Naruto was immersed in seep into his own consciousness allowing him a taste of it first hand.

After a long moment in the embrace, Hinata released Naruto and sat up straight, her hands sliding naturally into his. Naruto leaned in and kissed her tenderly on the lips. The both of their faces burned and they both chuckled in giddy nervousness.

"I should go tell the nurse and the 5th Hokage that you're awake."

He reluctantly released her hand as she stood up to go. His blue eyes watched as she turned and walked towards the door. As her hand settled on the door knob, she turned and looked back at him with a pensive smile.

"You know, it's probably doing Kyubi-chan good being inside of someone like you."

She opened the door and stepped out, closing it carefully behind her.

Naruto sat staring at the spot where she had stood.

"Kyubi…CHAN?"

_Japanese Words: mamoru (protect) ka (marks a question) gomen (sorry) daijobu (it's okay) aishiteru (I love you) chan (little)_


	10. Chapter 10

_Note: Sorry for the wait! This was a hard last chapter to write (fear not, I have sequels planned for later). Had to do a lot of "research" (ahem, um, re-watching Naruto episodes). I hope you all enjoy it! Credit to the creators of Naruto again, and THANK YOU EVERYONE FOR READING!_

_Japanese Terms: ai (love) nanika (what is it?) mutsukashii (difficult) Yattaa! (All right! Yes! Hooray!) Otousan (father) kawaii (cute, darling, charming) daijobu (it's all right) demo (but) ganbatte (go for it! Keep at it!) hai (yes, affirmative) baka (idiot) Honto(truly) koishii (beloved, dear) Yoshi (all right) oniisan (brother) mou ikkai (one more time) sugoi (amazing, great) Itaii (ouch!) Demo (but) Ahou (idiot)_

* * *

Awakenings 10

_Ai…ka?_

Kyubi pondered yet another foreign concept.

"Nanika, Kyubi-chan?"

There was a pause.

_I AM NOT A PUPPY! _

Naruto chuckled.

Kyubi snorted in distaste.

"You want to know what love is?"

_Yes._

Kyubi's response was both indignant and dripping with irritation.

"Ah, mutsukashii ne…I'm really not sure."

Naruto knocked his right fist lightly against his head as if that would put his thoughts in better order.

"I guess it's a feeling, feeling that a person is really wonderful and you want to always be around that person and take care her and make her dreams come true. It's like a promise to be with someone and take care of them because you think they're great, because you love them. But it's more than that…I don't know."

There was another silence while Kyubi pondered over these words.

_You're confusing me_, Kyubi accused.

"Hey, it's not like I got it all figured out yet. You asked and I'm just telling you what I think."

_Well, think harder._

"Che. You think harder, lazy bum."

A deep growl came from behind the sealed, rusted gates.

"Oh, don't give me that, you know you're being lazy about it. You can't always expect others to give you the answers to things."

Kyubi snorted again in irritation and turned his back to the young boy standing in the water outside his prison.

* * *

"Again."

Naruto, Hinata, and Hanabi stood absolutely still, each of the three students surrounded by a circle of 10 thick, wooden poles. For a moment it was silent, then the sound of wood being cut filled the air.

Hiashi walked around, inspecting each of the wooden poles. On the sides of each of the poles facing away from the two sisters were two marks in the wood. For Naruto, however, only the poles within his range of sight had been cut. The five behind him remained unscathed.

"Good. Hinata, Hanabi, continue on your own."

Hiashi went up to Naruto and motioned to him to crouch down on the ground with him.

"I'm sure you know that the byakuugan ability would have given you a distinct advantage in this technique," he began. Naruto gave him a serious nod.

"The purpose of this exercise is to expand the range of your attack. You've mastered the ability to change the direction of one chakra knife by hitting it with another. It may seem like you have a harder task than the other two, trying to hit targets you can not see, but in essence you have all ready mastered that. The backs of the poles within your range of vision show evidence of that. You can not see the backs of those poles, yet you are able to infer their location and accurately strike them. You must extend that same principle to the targets behind you. You cannot see them, so you must infer their position and aim accordingly."

He picked up a twig from the ground and began to draw in the soil. During this time, the sound of cutting wood was steady from Hinata and Hanabi's direction.

"This is you and this is the circle of poles around you. In this situation, the targets are symmetrically positioned. Use the location of the poles you can see to infer the location of the poles you can't see."

He drew the flight paths of the first and second set of chakra knives. The finished drawing looked rather like a fancy, polygonal shuriken.

"Now, try it again," Hiashi said as he stood up and walked outside the perimeter of the targets.

Naruto focused, pausing for a moment longer than usual as he visualized the shuriken shape in his mind, and then executed the technique.

"Excellent. Come see for yourself."

Naruto turned around and ran to the poles behind him. He saw the marks on the backs of the poles, a little crooked, but there nonetheless.

"Yattaa!" Naruto jumped and punched his fist up into the sky in celebration.

The sound of cloth threads being cut apart was faint, but all four of them heard it. Hiashi raised his right arm, examining the large ash-gray sleeve that normally hung elegantly off of his arm but at the present moment was hanging awkwardly with a large opening cut into it.

"Go…gomenasai, Otousan!" Hinata's high pitched, frightened squeal came from her cringing figure as she looked out from behind one of the training poles at her father.

"Abunai," Hiashi breathed.

"Hinata! Concentrate!"

"H…hai!" she squealed again and skittered back to her place.

Hinata gave Naruto an embarrassed smile, and he felt the urge to give her a comforting hug. He gave her the thumbs up, nice-guy-pose.

"Ganbatte Hinata!"

She smiled appreciatively.

"Hai!"

After another hour of refining their aim, Hiashi said,

"That will do for today. Tomorrow morning there will be no lesson. Hanabi, Naruto, you're dismissed."

* * *

Naruto walked down the path through the rock garden, looked up the hill next to the training grounds and waved to a figure standing at the top. Hyuuga Ryozo reluctantly waved back, not used to showing such friendliness. Naruto walked through the gate to the garden next to the dining room with Hanabi under the high noon sun. Their practices had been going longer than before, and Hiashi had been keeping Hinata an hour or so longer for some private training. A knowing smile crept across Naruto's face. The scheduled rematch with Neji was coming up at the end of the week, and Hiashi was personally trying to improve Hinata's chances.

The garden was full of people. The ground was covered with newly lain fertilizer and workers were busily planting new plants. Naruto gave the workers an embarrassed wave and smile. They smiled back politely. _I hope they don't know that this was my fault_. He turned to look at the other side of the garden and realized that the head gardener, a grouchy looking old man, was glaring at him. Naruto shrunk a bit.

* * *

The rain poured down in unending streams pounding on the homes of Konoha. Naruto and Hinata were walking hand in hand down a corridor that lead into the fighting grounds of the stadium that was often used for Chuunin exam exhibitions. As they were about emerge onto the battle arena, Hinata jumped behind Naruto and peaked over his right shoulder. They stood just within the shadows of the corridor which afforded them a bit of privacy.

"Why are there so many people here?" her voice came out nervously high pitched. She grabbed onto the orange and black fabric that covered the back of his shoulder with both hands and hid the bottom half of her face, only her pale eyes peaked out, wide and full of apprehension. Naruto turned around to face her, and as he did, she shifted her grip on his jacket to the front, burying her face into his chest in the process. Naruto looked down at the silky, ink-blue hair nestled into his chest, the small hands that had attached themselves to his jacket, and felt the pressure of her face against him…_Kawaii_…he thought adoringly. He wrapped his arms around her.

"Daijobu, Hinata, I'm sure they're all just excited to see you and Neji fight. You're going to do great! I should know, I've been training with you all this time and you've been improving so much in everything!" he said reassuringly.

"Demo, Tsunade-sama said she was only going to let in Konoha ninjas that were interested in watching," came her muffled reply.

She buried her face further into his chest while gripping his jacket even tighter. After all the months of training with him, being around him, talking to him, she had become more and more comfortable around him and now he was a source of not only comfort but security and warmth as well.

"I guess a lot of Konoha ninjas can't wait to see you show off your skills!" Naruto laughed as he put his hands on her shoulders and pushed her away so that he could look into her face. Her lips were tight with worry and her eyes showed a mix of apprehension and determination. He kissed her on the forehead, then pinched both of her cheeks and pulled. Her face was gently pulled horizontally, causing her mouth to open and stretch a bit. He gave her a toothy smile.

"Ganbatte Hinata-chan!"

"Hai," she replied with a distorted face.

"I'll be upstairs in the balcony watching you!"

With that he ran up the stairs to her right. Hinata closed her eyes and took a deep breath. As she exhaled, her eyes opened and she clenched her fists and began walking forward into the pouring rain. Protected by a large awning, the audience was dry and shielded from the storm. She looked up and saw her family sitting at the front row right at the top of the steep wall that rose sharply from the ground she stood on. She scanned the rest of the crowd high above her. Pretty much any ninja that was not on duty or away on a mission was there to watch the match. She felt very much like a fish in a fishbowl with everyone staring in at her. She tried to keep her breathing steady. Then she noticed Neji walking out from the corridor opening opposite of the one she had emerged from with a severe look on his face.

"GAN-BAT-TE! HI-NA-TA! GAN-BAT-TE! HI-NA-TA!"

Even through the steady pounding of the rain, Naruto's chant came through loud and clear ringing through the stadium and shattering the formal ambiance of the place. Up on the balcony above the corridor the two of them had walked down, where challengers usually waited their turn, Naruto was chanting with a large red fan in each hand striking poses with each syllable that came out of his mouth, jumping up and down while waving the fans much like a monkey behind bars at a zoo taunting onlookers.

Up in the stands, along with everyone else in the crowd, Ino stared at the spectacle that was Naruto.

"Bakka," she said loudly.

"Honto," Sakura replied, but she smiled. _That's our Naruto._

Startled by the ruckus, Hinata turned around red-faced and looked up the steep wall behind her at her chimp-like koishii. Involuntarily she laughed and waved up at him with a bright smile on her face wiping away the worry that had strained her features a moment before. She turned back around to face her opponent.

_Yoshi_. _It's now or never_.

She walked forward toward Neji, her eyes full of determination.

Up on the balcony, Naruto yelled "GANBATTE HINATA!" one more time, put his red fans away, put both his hands on the railing in front of him, and leaned forward in anticipation of the fight. He smiled.

"Neji oniisan," Hinata acknowledged, her voice soft but firm.

"Hinata-san."

Neji observed her face. At their last encounter, she had come towards him full of trepidation, eyes looking this way and that, mind wandering back to painful memories, fear apparent on her countenance. This time she stood and faced him, eyes looking directly into his. He could tell she was trying to keep her breathing even and her gaze stable. She was nervous but determined.

Hagane Kotetsu jumped down from the stands and stood between them as the referee for the match. He held his hands up in the air and a hush fell over the audience. Only the steady sound of the rain pounding the battle grounds could be heard.

"The rules for this special challenge will be the same as the chuunin exams. The match will go on until one of you dies or gives up. If I determine that there is a clear winner, I may stop the match. Fighters to the center."

Hagane raised his right hand up in the air, then let it drop.

"Begin."

The two Hyuuga descendants took a step back with their right legs, their left legs positioned out in front of them pointing their feet towards each other. Their right hands were held palms facing down next to their right hips, fingers together and thumbs tucked in. Their left hands were held up in front of them with their palms facing each other also with fingers together and thumbs tucked in. They were in the ready position for Juuken, the Hyuuga Style Taijutsu that attacks an opponent's Inner Coils System of chakra flow. The veins and nerves around their eyes bulged as their byakuugan hyper-activated.

The match began.

Hinata moved first, flinging an attack at Neji's core chakra flow. Neji's outstretched hand swung inwards towards his body as he swiped the attack out of the way. Hinata's other hand came in for another attack, only to be pushed off its mark by another flick of Neji's hand which flew in to strike her right after the block. Hinata bent backwards, barely avoiding the blow. This continued on for a bit, the crowd watching on as the rain sprayed out from the space where the two exchanged their attacks.

_She's faster._

Neji began to shift his attacks and they came from odd angles now. Hinata moved to match. Then he saw it, an opening in her pattern of movements. He went for it, slipping his hand through her arms, chakra extending from chakra holes in his fingers like surgical needles, and hit his mark. His eyes grew wide when he felt his chakra deflected. The opening he saw in her movements closed as she adjusted. His eyes betrayed his puzzlement. He was sure his strike had made its mark, just like when he had fought her in the chuunin preliminary tournament. He had seen a chakra flow concentrate in the area he attacked. He decided to test his theory.

He saw another opening and struck. Again he made his mark. Again, his chakra was deflected. He jumped back, pulling away from the close combat. He smiled, impressed, but un-phased.

"So, I see you've learned how to use your chakra to block juuken attacks," he said with a wry smile.

"I suppose I should get a little more serious this time."

He sunk into a deep stance, his left foot towards her, his right foot behind, and his left hand down by his ankle, fingers all pointing straight down at his left foot. His right hand was pointing up into the sky behind him. He closed his eyes.

With he byakuugan, he watched as Hinata took the same pose.

_We'll see if you've finally mastered this move_.

Hinata's poor juuken abilities were no secret among Konoha ninjas, poor compared to Neji that is. He was the prodigy after all.

"Juuken hou, hake rokujuu yonshou! (Divination Field 64 strikes!)"

As Neji called out his move, overlapping his deep, firm voice was Hinata's soft, determined voice.

"Juuken hou, hake rokujuu yonshou! (Divination Field 64 strikes!)"

Up in the stands, Hiashi held his breath.

"Hakken nishou! (Divine two strikes!)"

Their two voices harmonized and following was the perfect dance of their strikes against each other.

"Four strikes! Eight strikes! Sixteen strikes! Thirty-two strikes!"

They were like two preying mantis, their arms angular while their hands moved in flowing paths, their fingers like bullets flying through the air. Strike after strike, Hinata matched Neji, deflecting and canceling his attacks.

"Sixty-four strikes!"

The last series of strikes flew between them, steady and pounding like the rain splattering around them, its pouring pathway to the ground disturbed by their vicious actions.

Hinata's cry of pain echoed through the arena. Naruto gasped and his hands turned red from gripping tightly around the railing as he watched Hinata's body fly backwards and hit the ground with a splash of mud and water. Her hands reached in and pressed against her stomach and her body curled up in a fetal position in response to the pain.

The gasps in the audience were audible.

"Hinata, you've disappointed me," Neji said in a tone of superiority.

From within the curled up, muddied and wet form on the ground came a blue glow. Tsunade smiled.

Hinata was up on her knees, mouth open and gasping for air.

_I see, so she's healed the damage I did to her chakra coils…well, not completely healed._

Neji watched as Hinata's face still winced from the pain. She stood up on her feet, her left hand hanging down by her knee and her right hand holding her stomach. Her clothes were stained from the mud and water, but her eyes still wore a crystal clear look of determination.

"Mou…" she gasped painfully, slowly evening out her breathing, "mou ikkai."

"YOSHI HINATA! GANBATTE!" Naruto screamed from above.

"Suit yourself," Neji said, not an ounce of compassion in his voice, "You know very well I will not go easy on you."

"Daijobu, this is my way of the ninja," Hinata said and smiled despite the pain, repeating the words she had held to in their previous fight.

Neji smiled knowingly and sunk into another deep stance, but this time instead of positioning his left hand by his ankle, he placed it stretching out towards the ground in front of him. His back hand was still pointing up to the sky, but had swung over farther behind him. His waist was twisting clockwise, and he seemed positioned like a windmill about to throw up a storm.

To his surprise, Hinata also sunk into the same stance.

_I see she's learned more than I had anticipated_.

He had no worries, though. She couldn't keep up with the 64 strike Divination field. There was no reason why she would be able to keep up this.

"Hakke hyaku nijuu hachi shou! (Divine 128 strikes!)"

Hinata's voice again flowed in harmony with his.

"Hakke hyaku nijuu hachi shou! (Divine 128 strikes!)"

Their movements were twice the speed of the previous flow. Their deadly dance blurring like the wings of a humming bird, the rainwater spraying out in every direction from their space of attack and block exchanges. Some jaws dropped in awe in the audience.

Suddenly Hinata did something no one expected. The flow of her strikes suddenly shifted and she was flying over Neji in an arc-like pathway, spinning like a spiraling arrow as she flew through the air. Her right hand was down by her body, blocking some of Neji's attacks which had shifted and followed her as she launched up into the air. Her left hand, though was reaching out as if trying to touch something that was flying through the air in front of her along the same path she was going.

In the next moment, Hinata hit the ground, shoulder first, rolled expertly over the ground and ended up kneeling with on knee down. Her hands were clutched around her torso in pain, and she coughed and gasped for air in pain. Her one hand wasn't enough to block all of Neji's attacks and many of them hand landed and did considerable damage to her Inner Coil System. Her hands glowed with a blue flame again as she used her chakra to guide as much of her own chakra flow back to normality as possible. This was difficult considering she was attempting to heal the damage with a damaged system. Nonetheless, it was stabilizing her chakra flow.

The two Hyuugas stood with their backs facing each other with Neji standing and Hinata on one knee.

"Match over. Tie."

The referee Hagane raised both of his hands up in the air.

"What did he say? Did he say it was a tie?'

"A tie? How?"

The crowd was in an uproar.

"Look!" Ino yelled as she pointed at Neji's back.

Slowly the cloth on his back on a spot right between his shoulder blades slipped apart revealing that it had been cut. Slowly, a stain of dark red started to spread around on the tan fabric around the cut.

"YATTAA!" Naruto screamed as he came flying down from his balcony perch. He ran through rain towards Hinata and bear hugged her, picking her clear off the ground.

"That was AWESOME Hinata! Sugoi!" he yelled as he hugged her and jumped and swung.

"Itaii!" Hinata gasped in pain. Naruto quickly released her and lowered her gently to the ground.

"Gomen! Demo, it was just too AWESOME!" He gave her a toothy smile.

"Apparently, Naruo seems to know what happened. Someone fill me in because I still don't know what happened," Ino said to Sakura with a look of puzzlement and annoyance across her face.

"So des ne," Kakashi sensei closed his one visible eye knowingly, his sharingan eye hidden behind his forehead protector that was tied slanted across his head, "Hinata has apparently learned some sort of distance chakra attack. She must have slipped it in while Neji was busy attacking her. Also, it looks like she went for a weak spot of some sort."

"Ehhhh," Sakura and Ino looked at each other wide eyed with curiosity.

"So," Kakashi sensei put his right hand out, "I guess it's time for you two to pay up."

Behind him Kurenai, Hinata's sensei, and Guy Sensei, Neji's sensei, each pulled out a wad of money and put it into Kakashi's hands with annoyed expressions.

Kakashi didn't let it end there.

"I know you each bet on your own students to win, maybe sentimentally or maybe out of pig-headedness, but part of a ninja's skill is to be able to gage the skills of other ninjas regardless of personal biases," Kakashi lectured with one finger in the air.

"Ahou," Guy and Kurenai said in unison as the landed their fists simultaneously on Kakashi's head.

Hiashi sat with a faint smile on his face, his two hands clenched in fists in his lap. His mind wandered back nostalgically to the days when he and his twin brother, Neji's father, used to challenge and battle each other. It was good to see their children follow in their footsteps.

Down in the battle rink, Hinata and Neji looked at each other.

"You didn't need to hold back," Neji said.

"Neither did you," Hinata replied.

They smiled.

"RAMEN CELEBRATION!" Naruto yelled.

_

* * *

Note: That marks the end of this fan fic! I hope it was a last chapter worth the wait. Inspired by everyone's feedback, I plan to write a part 2 and part 3 coming up later. Just a warning, I'm not sure how soon I'll be able to write them, but please stay posted! Will Naruto's will win against Kyubi's? How will Naruto bring back Sasuke? Will being an important person in Naruto's life bring Hinata under peril? What will it be like when Naruto and Hinata are all grown up? Will their relationship last? Stay tuned :D_


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